Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.

Monday, July 26, 2010

It's Monday! What are you reading? (July 26, 2010)



What are you reading on Mondays is hosted by Sheila 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!

Currently Reading:
Lowcountry Summer by Dorothea Benton Frank
Tempted by a Warrior by Amanda Scott

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
Farm Fatale by Wendy Holden - Really late on this one. . .
Sand in My Eyes by Christine Lemmon


Bathroom Book:
Masked edited by Lou Anders

Audio Book:
The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly - My husband and I did start this one over in the car - I think I have him hooked on it, so hopefully we can cuddle up some evening this week and finish it!


New this week:
I Love This Bar by Carolyn Brown (Book Had Been Found! - My mom had picked it up when she was here - it was still in her suitcase!)
Wild Irish Sea by Loucinda McGary - another really late one. . .
So Over It by Stephanie Morrill
And One Last Thing. . . by Molly Harper
Roseflower Creek by Jackie Lee Miles

Books Reviewed Last Week:
Couldn't review any because the cabin we were in didn't have WiFi - more on that later.



Waiting to Be Reviewed:
101 Things I Learned in Fashion School by Matthew Frederick and Alfredo Cabrero

Heart of My Heart by Kristin Armstrong
Meet Me in Dreamland: A Lu-Chu and Lena Book by Steven McKinney, Valerie McKinney
The Summer of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howells
Starvation Lake: A Mystery by Bryan Gruley (Sheila - you gotta read this one)
Forget You by Jennifer Echols




 
Ready - Set - Read!

Mailbox Madness (July 18 - July 25)

Bison roam the Black Hills of South Dakota

In My Mailbox is hosted Sundays at The Story SirenMailbox Monday is currently hosted at The Printed Page, but will be going on tour after this month . Please visit these posts and take a look at what packages everybody else got this week!

Solitary
by Travis Thrasher
(First Wild Card Tour)

When Chris Buckley moves to Solitary, North Carolina he faces the reality of his parents' divorce, a school full of nameless faces -- and Jocelyn Evans. Jocelyn is beautiful and mysterious enough to leave Chris speechless. But the more Jocelyn resists him, the more the two are drawn together.

Chris soon learns that Jocelyn has secrets as deep as the town itself, secrets more terrifying than the bullies he faces in the locker room or his mother's unexplained nightmares. He slowly begins to understand the horrific answers. The question is whether he can save Jocelyn in time.

This first book in the Solitary Tales series will take you from the cold halls of high school to the dark rooms of an abandoned cabin -- and remind you what it means to believe in what you cannot see.


She's Gone Country
by Jane Porter
(from Book Sparks)


Shey Darcy, a thirty-nine-year-old former top model for Vogue and Sports Illustrated, led a charmed life in New York City with a handsome photographer husband, until the day he announced he'd fallen in love with someone else. Left to pick up the pieces of her once happy world, Shey decides to move back home to Texas with her three teenage sons. Life on the family ranch, however, brings with it a whole new host of dramas, starting with differences of opinion with her staunch Southern Baptist mother, her rugged but overprotective brothers, and daily battles with her three sons, who are also struggling to find themselves. Add to the mix Shey's ex-crush, Dane Kelly, a national bull-riding champ, and she's got her hands full. It doesn't take long before Shey realizes that in order to reinvent herself, she must let go of an uncertain future and a broken past, to find happiness -- and maybe love -- in the present.


Faeries Gone Wild
by Mary Janice Davidson, Lois Greiman, Michele Hauf, Leandra Logan
(Win from St. Martin's)

"Tall, Dark and Not So Faery" (Davidson)
Scarlett is not your typical pint-sized faery. At six feet, four inches tall, she's an unlikely candidate for a match made in heaven. But when she ventures to Cannon Falls, Minnesota, on royal orders to survey its extraordinary residents, she stumbles upon the one man who just may measure up to size. . .

"Pixie Lust" (Greiman)
William Timber is a cutthroat developer who refuses to let a few trees come between him and his next million. But when Avalina -- a sparkling faery charged to protect all things green -- comes to town, William is forced to choose between life as he knows it and the unknown reaches of his heart.

"Dust Me, Baby, One More Time" (Hauf)
A librarian by day and a tooth faery by night, Sidney has absolutely no time to find Mr. Right. Until she fllies smack-dab into sexy, sun-bronzed Dart Sand, a man who makes her wings a-flutter. . . and whose allure could get her banished from the Mortal Realm.

"A Little Bit Faery" (Logan)
Tia is mysstified when she strikes out on the Luna faery singles scene, in spite of her hourglass curves and vivacious charm. Then she takes off for Manhattan and lands on the doorstep of a steamy firefighter who sets her soul on fire --  and shares a strong connection to her secret past.


The Berenstain Bears and a Job Well Done
by Jan and Mike Berenstain
(First Wild Card Tour)

Brother, Sister, and Honey Bear need to clean their playhouse. They'd rather play outside. In The Berenstain Bears and a Job Well Done the Bear children learn what the Bible says about the joy of work.


The Berenstain Bears and the Gift of Courage
by Jan and Mike Berenstain
(First Wild Card Tour)

Brother and Sister Bear wonder if they can be as brave as David when he fought Goliath. They find out when they face Too-Tall Grizzly and his gang. In The Berenstain Bears and the Gift of Courage, the cubs learn where real courage comes from.


Knit One, Kill Two
by Maggie Sefton
(purchased)

Despite the fact that her aunt was an expert knitter, Kelly Flynn never picked up a pair of knitting needles she liked -- until she strolled into House of Lambspun. Now, in the first in a brand-new series, she learns how to knit one, purl two, and untangle the mystery behind her aunt's murder. . .

Kelly Flynn would be the first to admit her life in Washington, D.C., is a little on the dull side. But coming back to Colorado for her beloved aunt's funeral wasn't the kind of excitement she was seeking. The police are convinced that her Aunt Helen's death was the result of a burglary gone bad, but for the accountant in Kelly, things just aren't adding up. After all, why would her sensible, sixty-eight-year-old borrow $20,000 just days before her death?  With the help of the knitting regulars at House of Lambspun, Kelly's about to get a few lessons in cranking out a sumptuously colored scarf -- and in luring a killer out of hiding . . .


Friday Mornings at Nine
by Marilyn Brant
(from the author)

Each Friday morning at the Indigo Moon Cafe, Jennifer, Bridget and Tamara meet to swap stories about marriage, kids, and work. But one day, spurred by recent e-mails from her college ex, Jennifer poses questions they've never faced before. What if they all married the wrong man? What if they're living the wrong life? And what would happen if, just once, they gave in to temptation...Soon each woman is second-guessing the choices she's made - and the ones she can unmake - as she becomes aware of new opportunities around every corner, from attentive colleagues and sexy neighbours to flirtatious past lovers. And as fantasies blur with real life, Jennifer, Bridget and Tamara begin to realize how little they know about each other, their marriages, and themselves, and how much there is to gain - and lose - when you step outside the rules...


Radiance
by Alyson Noel
(MacMillan Children's Publishing Group)

Riley Bloom has left her sister and crossed the bridge into the afterlife -- a place called Here, where time is always Now. She has picked up where she left off when she was alive, living with her parents and dog in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. When she's summoned before The Council, she learns that the afterlife isn't just an eternity of leisure. She's been assigned a job, Soul Catcher, and a teacher, Bodhi, a possible cute, seemingly nerdy boy who's definitely hiding something. They return to earth together for Riley's first assignment, a Radiant Boy who's been haunting a castle in England for centures. Many Soul Catchers have tried to get him to cross the bridge and failed.  But all of that was before he met Riley. . .


Do No Evil
by Kymberly Goltermann and Ashley L Goltermann
(received from the authors)

Three years ago, Phineas Nobul was at the top of her game as a defense attorney in Los Angeles. When the Lair, New York native returned home from the holidays, she was surprised to find herself willing to give it all up for love. Now brokenhearted, nearly penniless, and once again unemployed Phineas finds herself partnering up with her sister to take a second shot as success.

Phoebe, the eldest and more responsible Nobul daughter, envies her little sister's free spirit and loathes her unreliability. This is never more the case than when Phoebe finds herself dumped on her wedding day and her little sister nowhere to be found. When Phineas resurfaces and much wine has been consumed, she presents the heinous idea of Phoebe quitting her career in publishing to team up with her as private investigators. Phoebe rejects the idea at first but then sees this as a chance to start over.

Business is barely up and running when a corpse is left in the newly established Artemis Agency. A foreboding warning soon follows. The sisters don't know whether to be terrified or intrigued. As the bodies begin piling up, Phoebe and Phineas get caught up in a case of conspiracy and scandal that once haunted small-town Lair.

Add in an eccentric trigger-happy grandmother, a basset hound with an attitude, a hunky yet overprotective veterinarian, a mysterious cop known as Officer Yummy, and a very persistent killer and you've got one hell of a mystery!



What books came to live with you this week?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Masked edited by Lou Anders - Book Spotlight


edited by Lou Anders
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon and Schuster

Superheroes have come a long way since the "Man of Steel" was introduced in 1938. This brilliant new collection features original stories and novellas from some of today's most exciting voices in comics, science fiction, and fantasy. Each marvelously inventive tale shows us just how far our classic crusaders have evolved -- and how the greatest of heroes are, much like ourselves, all too human.



In "Call Her Savage, " Marjorie M. Liu enters the dark heart of a fierce mythic heroine who is forced, by war, to live up to her own terrible legend.

In "A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (Villains too)," Bill Willingham presents a fully-realized vision of a universe where epic feats and tragic flaws have transformed the human race.

In "Vacuum Lad," Stephen Baxter unveils the secret origins of the first true child of the space age -- and disproves the theory that "nothing exists in a vacuum."

In "Head Cases," Peter David and Kathleen David blast through the blogosphere to expose the secret longings of a Lonely Superhero Wife.

In "The Non-Event," Mike Carey removes the gag order on a super-thief named Lockjaw. . . and pries out a confession of life-altering events.

Also includes stories by Mike Baron, Mark Chadbourn, Paul Cornell, Daryl Gregory, Joseph Mallozzi, James Maxey, Ian McDonald, Chris Roberson, Gail Simone, Matthew Sturges. . . and an introduction by Lou Anders, "one of the brightest and best of the new generation of science fiction editors" (Jonathan Strahan, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year).



Masked
Publisher/Publication Date: Gallery Books, Jul 20, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4391-6882-0
400 pages

Forget You by Jennifer Echols - Book Spotlight


by Jennifer Echols
Publisher: MTV Books/Simon and Schuster

Why can't you choose what you forget. . . and what you remember?

There's a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked up his twenty-four-year old girlfriend.  Like Zoey's fear that the whole town will find out about her mom's nervous breakdown.  Like darkly handsome bad boy Doug taunting her at school. Feeling like her life is about to become a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, using her famous attention to detail to make sure she's the perfect daughter, the perfect student and the perfect girlfriend to ultra-popular football player Brandon.

But then Zoey is in a car crash, and the next day there's one thing she can't remember at all -- the entire night before.  Did she go parking with Brandon, like she planned? And if so, why does it seem like Brandon is avoiding her? And why is Doug -- of all people -- suddenly acting as if something significant happened between the two of them?  Zoey dimly remembers Doug pulling her from the wreck, but he keeps referring to what happened that night as if it was  more, and it terrifies Zoey to admit how much is a blank to her.  Controlled, meticulous Zoey is quickly losing her grip on the all-important details of her life -- a life that seems strangely empty of Brandon, and strangely full of Doug.

About the author: Jennifer Echols is the author of teen romantic dramas for MTV Books and teen romantic comedies for Simon Pulse.  She lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her family. You can catch her at her blog - Don't forget to write. . .


Forget You
Publisher/Publication Date: MTV Books, Jul 20, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4391-7823-2
292 pages

Sunday, July 18, 2010

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?



What are you reading on Mondays is hosted by Sheila 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!

Didn't get any old reviews done this week - but did you see all the new giveaways??

Currently Reading:
The Summer of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howells
Lowcountry Summer by Dorothea Benton Frank
Tempted by a Warrior by Amanda Scott

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

Bathroom Book:
Starvation Lake: A Mystery by Bryan Gruley (Don't worry Sheila - it is coming out of the bathroom this weekend!)

Audio Book:
The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly - This is really good, but since we are going to be in the car for about 10 hours this weekend - I told my husband I would start it over so he could listen with me.

New this week:
I Love This Bar by Carolyn Brown (Book Had Been Found! - My mom had picked it up when she was here - it was still in her suitcase!)
Wild Irish Sea by Loucinda McGary
Farm Fatale by Wendy Holden
Masked edited by Lou Ande
Forget You by Jennifer Echols
So Over It by Stephanie Morrill

Books Reviewed Last Week:


Perfectly Dateless by Kristin Billerbeck
Touching the Sky by Bonnie Leon

Waiting to Be Reviewed:
101 Things I Learned in Fashion School by Matthew Frederick and Alfredo Cabrero

Heart of My Heart by Kristin Armstrong
Meet Me in Dreamland: A Lu-Chu and Lena Book by Steven McKinney, Valerie McKinney
Hey - at least I didn't add to this category!
 
Ready - Set - Read!

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