Mailbox Monday (Sept 12, 2011)

 Mailbox Monday's host for September is Amused by Books. In My Mailbox is hosted Sundays at The Story Siren. Please visit these posts and take a look at what packages everybody else got this week! 

Hello, Hollywood!

by Janice Thompson

When it comes to love, one thing's for sure -- it doesn't follow a script.

Athena Pappas is the head writer on Stars Collide, one of the most popular sitcoms in television history.  But when Vegas comedian Stephen Cosse is brought in to beef up the show's suddenly sagging ratings, she starts to worry about her job.  Sparks fly as the competition -- and attraction -- between the two writers heats up.  Athena has never had a problem writing the romances of her characters.  So why is her own love life so hard to script?

With humor and a Hollywood-insider viewpoint, Hello, Hollywood! delivers lots of laughs as Athena and Stephen discover that not being in control of the plot of their lives might just be the best thing that ever happened to them.

A Dog's Way Home

by Bobbie Pyron

Abby knows that Tam, her Shetland sheepdog, is her north star, and she's pretty certain she's his, too.  But when an accident separates Abby and Tam, it feels as though all the stars have fallen out of the sky and nothing will ever be right again.  As the days between them turn to weeks, then months, dangers and changes fill up Abby's and Tam's lives.  Will they ever find their way home to each other?

Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains, A Dog's Way Home is an unforgettable tale of the many miles, months, and mountains that divide two loyal friends -- but that can't possibly keep them apart.

Hades

by Alexandra Adornetto



Even the love of her boyfriend, Xavier Woods, and her siblings, Gabriel and Ivy, can't keep the angel Bethany Church from being tricked into a motorcycle ride that ends up in Hell.  There, Jake Thorn bargains for Beth's release back to Earth.  But what he asks of her will destroy her, and quite possibly, her loved ones, as well.  Can he be trusted in this wager?

Alexandra Adornetto's Hades has it all -- good and evil, angels and demons, romance and heartbreak.





E-books:

Chosen

by Denise Grover Swank

Everything Emma Thompson owns fits in a suitcase she moves from one roach infested motel to another. She and Jake, her five year old son who can see the future, are running from the men intent on taking him. Emma will do anything to protect him even when it means accepting the help of a stranger named Will. Jake insists she needs Will, but Emma’s never needed help before. And even though she’s learned to trust her son, it doesn’t mean she trusts Will.


Mercenary Will Davenport lives in the moment. Hauling Emma to South Dakota should have been an easy job, but his employer neglected to tell him about Emma’s freaky son and the gunmen hot on her trail. Instinct tells him this job is trouble, but nothing can prepare him for Jake’s proclamation that Will is The Chosen One, who must protect Emma from the men hunting her power. A power she doesn't know she has.


Will protects Emma and Jake on a cross-country chase from the men pursuing them, while struggling with memories from his past, his apprehension of Jake, and his growing attraction to Emma. Will’s overwhelming urge to protect Emma surprises him, especially since it has nothing to do with his paycheck and possibly everything to do with the tattoo Jake branded on his arm. Rich and powerful men are desperate to capture Emma, and Will must discover why before it's too late.

If I Tell
by Janet Gurtler




Jasmine Evans knows one thing for sure... people make mistakes. After all, she is one. Jaz is the result of a onenight stand between a black football player and a blonde princess. Having a young mother who didn't raise her, a father who wants nothing to do with her and living in a small-minded town where she's never fit in hasn't been easy. But she's been surviving. Until she sees her mom's new boyfriend making out with her own best friend. When do you forgive people for being human or give up on them forever?

Breaking the Code:
A Daughter's Journey Into Her Father's Secret War
by Karen Fisher-Alaniz


On his 81st birthday, without explanation, Karen Alaniz's father placed two weathered notebooks on her lap. Inside were more than 400 pages of letters he'd written to his parents during WWII. She began reading them, and the more she read, the more she discovered about the man she never knew and the secret role he played in WWII.
They began to meet for lunch every week, for her to ask him questions, and him to provide the answers. And with painful memories now at the forefront of his thoughts, her father began to suffer, making their meetings as much about healing as discovery. Thus began an unintended journey—one taken by a father and daughter who thought they knew each other—as they became newly bound in ways that transcended age and time.



What came home to your mailbox this week?

Back to the Books Winner!

I had 80 entries into my giveaway and the lucky winner (chosen by random.org) was number 70 - Mia J!   Congrats Mia!  I have sent you an email and will be sending you the box of books to the address you left during the contest!




Click Here For Funny Pictures 
Funny Dancing Cat Pictures

First Wild Card Tour: 52 Things Kids Need From a Mom (Book Review)

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!

My Thoughts: I love reading this book, but more importantly, I love using her suggestions.  She starts out by telling you that this is not "checklist".  That there are many things that different moms could come up with to do.  She just hopes that this list gets you to be creative.  What I got out of it was to "be present" in your children's lives. 

One of the chapters was "Kids Need a Mom. . .To Make Them Sit Around the Table. . .and Linger". This is something that we already do, and we all take turns telling about our day.  She suggests though, to have everyone tell a high and a low.  I think this is a great idea, because you might find out some things going on in your child's life that you wouldn't hear about (the lows).

Another chapter is "Kids Need a Mom. . . To Wait on Them Hand and Foot...When They are Sick.  I am putting this one into practice today!  My daughter is home sick and just a little while ago I was thinking that I had never been up and down the stairs so often!  But now she is upstairs sleeping and I get a few minutes to sit! 

The chapters are all just a couple of pages long so it is really simple to read a snatch of it here or there.  Much of it might be common sense to some of us, but sometimes we all need a reminder!  I think the moms in my Mops group would really love this book.

Today's Wild Card author is:

Angela Thomas

and the book:

52 Things Kids Need from a Mom

Harvest House Publishers (September 1, 2011)

***Special thanks to Karri James | Marketing Assistant | Harvest House Publishers for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Angela Thomas is a sought-after speaker, teacher, and bestselling author of Do You Think I’m Beautiful, My Single Mom Life, Prayers for My Baby Boy, and Prayers for My Baby Girl. She inspires thousands at national conferences, workshops, and through video studies that she filmed and wrote including When Wallflowers Dance.

Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Bestselling author and mother of four Angela Thomas delivers a helpful, encouraging gathering of 52 inspiring ideas for moms who, in the whir of busyness, long to connect with their kids. Moms will learn to lead with God’s love in the small moments that make up an abundant, intentional life.



Product Details:

List Price: $12.99
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (September 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736943919
ISBN-13: 978-0736943918

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Kids Need Their Mom…

To Pray in Secret
with the Door Open


In my first years as a mom, I desperately wanted to keep a passionate spiritual life with God. I wanted to read the Bible. Sit quietly and pray. Maybe even write a few things in my journal. It’s just that my little people would not cooperate. I had four babies in seven years, and not one of them was willing to go along with my plan. My heart kept longing to go back and have a spiritual life the way I’d always had. Alone. It took me a while to realize that being a mom means you might never be alone again.

Frustrated. Probably even mad sometimes. I remember shaking my head and just fussing on the inside about my crazy, chaotic predicament. I am trying to be with God so that I can be a better mom. Anybody with me here? As you can imagine, being alone rarely happened. And I’d feel guilty about my crumbling spiritual life. And the only ones I knew to blame were them, the ones I loved so dearly, who needed me every minute.

I’d love to tell you that the answer for my struggle came to me in a moment of brilliance. But I was too tired to be brilliant. There was just an afternoon. I think I put on a video for the kids to watch and went upstairs to my bedroom. For some reason I kept the door open and sat down on the floor to read my Bible for a minute, and then I stretched out, facedown, on my carpet to pray. I guess I had been praying for one whole minute, and then they came.

I could hear them coming down the hall, but that day, instead of stopping what I was doing, I just kept lying there, praying. Of course, they walked right in, and I’m sure you can guess what they did. They crawled on top of me. And they played with my hair. And they wiggled their little faces up to mine.

“Hey, mama,” one whispered.

“Hey, honey,” a gentle, not frustrated, voice spoke from inside of me.

“Watcha doin’?” they said in unison.

“Praying.”

“Oh…it looked like you were sleeping,” an honest observer said.

It’s been known to happen, I admitted to myself.

Do you know what they did next? Those little toddling children lay down beside me and mostly of on top of me and prayed too. Oh, they prayed squirrelly prayers that lasted for only a couple of minutes, but they prayed. My babies were praying because they had seen their mama praying.

After a few minutes they were done, but I just kept lying there while they ran in and out. Back to the video. Then back to check on praying mom. And God settled something inside of me that afternoon. The days of being a college coed with lots of time to be alone to pray were over. That chapter was closed. And honestly, I didn’t want to go back. I just longed for the sweetness of how I used to spend time with God.

But lying on my bedroom floor that day, I knew I heard Him speaking to me:

This is how I want you to pray now. Pray in secret—with the door open. I want them to see you being with Me. I want them to catch you turning to your heavenly Father for guidance. I want them to learn from you how to walk with Me. No dramatic presentation needed. No fanfare required. Angela, this is a new season with a new way. And this new way for your heart pleases Me.

I remember being so very humbled. And grateful. My uptight, “everything must be right” personality could have kept me away from God for years. Trying to get it all together. Trying to be just right before I could spend time with Him. But that day God so tenderly walked me step-by-step through one of the most powerful lessons about grace I have ever known.

Come to Me messy.
Come when you’re tired.
Let the children lie on top of you.
Let them interrupt you.
You do not have to be perfect…just come to Me and let them see.

A woman stopped me last night. She said she’d heard me tell this story a few years ago and it completely changed her as a mom. She too had been trying to keep the rules and do things neatly, in order, the way she always had. She told me, “I do my Bible study sitting on the bathroom floor while my kids are in the tub. Most of the pages are warped by splashes of water, and some of my notes written in ink run, but those messy, imperfect books are treasures to me now.”

My kids are older now, but the lesson remains. They still need to catch me praying. They should walk past my room and know I’m reading my Bible. They need to find the notes I’ve taken lying on the counter in the kitchen. They need to overhear me praying with a friend on the phone.

I bet your kids do too.

It seems that the lessons we so want to teach our kids are transferred—and not because we sit them down in the living room, pass out ten pages about being spiritual, and then give them a long-winded lecture about how our family is going to follow God. The thing that shapes them more deeply is that you and I pursue God in the everyday of living—that our spiritual lives become the backdrop for their childhood. Bibles left open are normal. A kneeling, praying mom is an ordinary sight. Bibles studies done at bath time, routine.

Reaching Their Hearts

One afternoon I had gone to pray in secret, but God so beautifully taught me that my “secret” needed to be seen. Jesus said in Matthew 6 that we are supposed to keep a secret life. To give in secret, pray in secret, and fast in secret. But I think that when we become moms, for a season those sets of eyes sent from heaven to watch you need to see what you do with God in your “unseen” moments.

May it be so for you and me. And may the children who witness our prayers learn to pray more powerfully because they catch us being with God.

The Last Rising -- RELEASE DAY!

The Last Rising

by Rachel Firasek

Book Description: After paying two millennia’s penance to Osiris, world-weary Phoenix Ice has had enough. Saving souls without any hope for her own redemption isn’t how she imagined spending eternity. Fed up, she decides her next death will be her last. But when she sacrifices her own life for a sexy Texan in a catastrophic plane crash, she has no idea the consequences will be so great…or that she’ll end up back in his life for her next assignment.

Now that Turner Alcott has survived the worst, finding a wife and mother for his son matters more than ever before. When the mysterious Ice comes into his life, Turner knows she’s the one—but love is the last thing Ice wants. If he wants to win her heart, Turner must teach Ice how to forgive herself, and prove that love is the ultimate sacrifice.

Rachel is also giving away 3 copies of The Last Rising and a beautiful pendant.  Please enter your information on this form.  Be sure to tell them you are entering through Books and Needlepoint!  There is also a live twitter party tonight - 6pm CST - #lastrising

About the author: 

Rachel Firasek grew up in the south and despite the gentle pace, she harassed life at full steam. Her curiosity about mythology, human nature, and the chemical imbalance we call love led her to writing. Her stories began with macabre war poems and shifted to enchanted fairytales, before she settled on a blending of the two.

Today you’ll find her tucked on a small parcel of land, surrounded by bleating sheep and barking dogs, with her husband and children. She entertains them all with her wacky sense of humor or animated reenactments of bad 80’s dance moves.

She’s intrigued by anything unexplained and seeks the answers to this crazy thing we call life. You can find her where the heart twists the soul and lights the shadows… or at www.rachefirasek.com .

Excerpt

The Last Rising by Rachel Firasek
She reached for his hand, her nails scraping along the sensitive flesh before settling into his grip.
Lesson Number One in controlling a man: find his weakness. Every man had one.


His nostrils flared, and his quick intake of breath confirmed he was at least mildly interested in her. She tipped her head to the side and grinned, hoping he’d read the “let’s slink down the aisle to the lavatory” in her eyes. “Ice.” Her smile widened. She bit her lower lip and dropped her lashes.


He leaned forward, his face inches from hers. “Now, that’s different. Why Ice?”


“Why not?” She moved closer, until their lips almost touched. His aftershave wrapped around her. The sandalwood and vanilla scent cramped her stomach with a need threatening her sanity.


The pesky flight attendant chose that moment to interrupt her ploy. “Excuse me, would you like a pillow and blanket?”


Imaginary daggers pierced the helpful attendant. “Yes, please,” Ice gritted through clenched teeth, fighting to maintain the false smile plastered across her face. The blanket might come in handy. Ice paid the woman and
gracefully snatched the parcel.


The unwanted distraction ruined the brief interlude. Turner settled in his seat, another hint of pink shadowing his face. “Do you fly often?”


She twisted in the small seat and rested her back against the glass. “Too
often. And you?”


“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Work demands it. I have a son, Brodie. I would cart him and his nanny with me, but his asthma usually acts up on the plane.”


When he said his son’s name, his eyes lit up, reflecting bits of gold amongst the green. Love. Such a sad sentiment these humans had. Love wouldn’t keep his son from dying one day. Love was a soft emotion that tore your heart in two. No thanks. She’d loved like that once and it had destroyed her. The monster inside
her would never know that kind of vulnerability again. Forget the child. A pinched smile escaped her, but he seemed determined to carry on a conversation regardless of her lack of enthusiasm. She’d like to be doing
something other than talking right now.


He stretched his legs forward and slumped deeper into the seat. “Do you have kids?”


He must have a damn sorcerer working for him. Was it Pick on Ice Day? Damn, nosy humans. She schooled her face into a practiced calm. “Not anymore.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEXII!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEXII!!  I LOVE YOU!!! JUST CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE 17 TODAY!

It's Monday! What are you reading? (Sept 5, 2011)

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! 

Ugh!  I possibly have strep throat!  Am on medication but feeling rather poorly - looking forward to going to bed with a book in a little while!

Please check out my giveaways in the right sidebar.  I have a couple ending this week with relatively low entries!

Currently Reading:
Stray Dogs, Saints and Saviors by Alexander Russo
Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen - I need to finish this one so that I can start on Good Graces!  Watch for an interview with Lesley Kagen this week.

Next Up:
In Search of Rose Notes by Emily Arsenault
Good Graces by Lesley Kagen


E-Book:
Megan's Way by Melissa Foster


Bathroom Book:
52 Things a Kid Needs From a Mom by Angela Thomas


Reviewed Since Last Post:
Life Changing Bible Verses You Should Know by Erwin and Rebecca Lutzer

Children's Books Reviewed Since Last Post:


Waiting for Reviews:
 White Sleeper by David R. Fett and Stephen Langford
The Place of Belonging by Jayne Pearson Faulkner
The Blackberry Bush by David Housholder
The Girl in the Green Raincoat by Laura Lippman
Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Airmail by Naomi Bulger
Pie Town by Lynne Hinton
Chasing the Red Car by Ellen Ruderman

E-books waiting for review:
Sudden Moves by Kelli Sue Landon
This World We Live In (The Last Survivors, Book 3) by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Children's Books waiting for review:
Pearl's Wisdom by Auntie LuLu
Bug Meets His Friend (Bug's Adventure Series) by K.M. Groshek
Multiply on the Fly by Suzanne Slade
Ten for Me by Barbara Mariconda
Animalogy by Marianne Berkes
Prairie Storms by Darcy Pattison

READY - SET - READ!

Mailbox Monday (Sept 5, 2011)

 Mailbox Monday's host for September is Amused by Books. In My Mailbox is hosted Sundays at The Story Siren. Please visit these posts and take a look at what packages everybody else got this week! 

Following Atticus

by Tom Ryan

Following Atticus is the remarkable true story of a man and a dog embarking on the challenge of a lifetime. This is author Tom Ryan’s inspiring tale of how he and his miniature schnauzer companion, the “Little Buddha” Atticus M. Finch, attempted to scale all forty-eight of New Hampshire’s four thousand foot White Mountains twice in the dead of winter. It is a story of love, loss, and the resilience of the human and animal spirit that’s as thrilling as Into Thin Air and featuring the most endearing and unforgettable canine protagonist since Marley and Me.

The Lady of the Rivers

by Philippa Gregory

Jacquetta, daughter of the Count of Luxembourg and kinswoman to half the royalty of Europe, was married to the great Englishman John, Duke of Bedford, uncle to Henry VI. Widowed at the age of nineteen she took the extraordinary risk of marrying a gentleman of her house-hold for love, and then carved out a life for herself as Queen Margaret of Anjou's close friend and a Lancaster supporter - until the day that her daughter Elizabeth Woodville fell in love and married the rival king Edward IV. Of all the little-known but important women of the period, her dramatic story is the most neglected. With her links to Melusina, and to the founder of the house of Luxembourg, together with her reputation for making magic, she is the most haunting of heroines.

Heather Song

by Michael Phillips

Newly married, Marie and Alaster Reidhaven's life seems idyllic. But things start to fall apart when the Duke's sister's curses and spells start to plague them. Alaster dies and again Marie is widowed. Marie returns to Canada to visit her dying father. The reunion is tender and healing for them both.
Unexpectedly months later, Marie is astonished to learn that back in Scotland, her deceased husband Alaster never signed their pre-nup and had instead undertaken the legalities necessary to insure his estate would indeed go to Marie. Olivia is furious and full of threats and attempts to kill Marie and then disappears. Marie inherits and again assumes the title and role of duchess.


But now the other half of her former "love triangle" bubbles up from out of her past. Marie and Grahm begin seeing each other "as friends" awaiting God's leading.


Olivia reappears and again tries to kill Marie. Olivia eventually dies of cancer, unrepentant. The Reidhaven family line is at an end, the legacy of their memory to be carried forward by Marie who loved, in the end, all of them.

I Didn't Ask to be Born (But I'm Glad I Was)

by Bill Cosby


Over the past century, few entertainers have achieved the legendary status of William H. Cosby Jr. His successes span five decades and virtually all media, remarkable accomplishments for a kid who emerged from humble beginnings in a Philly housing project.


And the world's most beloved funnyman is back with I DIDN'T ASK TO BE BORN, his first humor book since the best selling Cosbyology. Cosby brings us more of his wonderful and hilarious insights into the human condition.

The Last Blind Date

by Linda Yellin

In this sparkling true story of falling in love long distance and staying in love up close a commitment-phobic, newly single father and a woman cosmically burned by marriage meet through friends.  On the telephone.  The old-fashioned way.  And against all odds, they connect.

Fresh, funny, and charmingly honest, Linda Yellin's memoir takes on the perils of courtship, marriage, and parenthood as she shares her discovery that moving for love just might work -- if you leave your baggage behind.

Spin the Plate

by Donna Anastasi


Time has done nothing to heal childhood wounds inflicted more than a dozen years ago, nor fade the memories. Now as an adult, Jo has given up on the human race, men in particular, investing her energies in tattoo artistry and animal rescue. Francis meets Jo during an altercation between Jo and another passenger on the Boston subway. Francis, the brains and speech writer for Charles Davis a Boston philanthropist and billionaire, is painfully lonely as his job requires that he maintain anonymity plus have constant exposure to the shallowness, corruption, and cruelty of humankind. From the moment he lays eyes on Jo, Francis sees beyond her rough exterior to the genuine, passionate, fearless, and beautiful person Jo is and pursues her with unwavering passion.
In a compelling story on living as an incest survivor and the how-to's of love, faith, and healing, Jo discovers she is not alone in her fight to leave her past behind and move beyond sorrow into joy.

The Kingdom of Childhood

by Rebecca Coleman


The Kingdom of Childhood is the story of a boy and a woman:  sixteen-year-old Zach Patterson, uprooted and struglling to reconcile his knowledge of his mother's extra marital affair, and Judy McFarland, a kindergarten teacher watching her family unravel before her eyes.  Thrown together to organize a fundraiser for thier failing private school and bonded by loneliness, they begin an affair that at first thrills, then corrupts each of them.  Judy sees in Zach the elements of a young man she loved as a child, but what Zach does not realize is that their relationship is -- for Judy -- only the latest in a lifetime of disturbing secrets.

Lethal

by Sandra Brown


When her four year old daughter informs her a sick man is in their yard, Honor Gillette rushes out to help him. But that "sick" man turns out to be Lee Coburn, the man accused of murdering seven people the night before. Dangerous, desperate, and armed, he promises Honor that she and her daughter won't be hurt as long as she does everything he asks. She has no choice but to accept him at his word.


But Honor soon discovers that even those close to her can't be trusted. Coburn claims that her beloved late husband possessed something extremely valuable that places Honor and her daughter in grave danger. Coburn is there to retrieve it -- at any cost. From FBI offices in Washington, D.C., to a rundown shrimp boat in coastal Louisiana, Coburn and Honor run for their lives from the very people sworn to protect them, and unravel a web of corruption and depravity that threatens not only them, but the fabric of our society.

Ebooks:

Aefle and Gisela

by Libby Malin


DeeDee and Tom share a history, a fling more than ten years ago, before he went off to graduate school and started ascending the career ladder of academe and she took over her father's car dealership in sleepy Oyster Point, Maryland, building it into a coveted business treasure. Their reconnection sets sparks flying between them -- from the original passion that bonded them and the class differences that parted them.


Meanwhile, what started as a prank leads to serious legal issues for both Tom and DeeDee as the groom sues them, DeeDee countersues, and Tom is caught in the middle. Concerned that this distraction will affect his quest for tenure, Tom encounters an unsympathetic department chair eager to replace him with a renaissance expert from the UK and a women's studies professor committed to challenging the "validity" of Thomas's signature research into an obscure poetry-writing medieval monk, Aefle, and his lady-love, Gisela.


AEFLE AND GISELA delivers laughs and love as Thomas learns, along with his "little monk," that life outside the “scriptorium” requires him to find real courage at last.

Promissary Payback

by Laurel Dewey


Laurel Dewey’s Detective Jane Perry is quickly becoming one of the most distinctive, dynamic, and unforgettable characters in suspense fiction today. She’s rock hard, but capable of extraordinary tenderness. She’s a brilliant cop, but she’s capable of making life-altering mistakes. She’s uncannily talented, and she’s heartbreakingly human.


In this novelette, Jane is called in to investigate the gruesome murder of a woman who profited greatly from the misfortunes of others. The case leaves Jane with little question about motive...and with a seemingly endless number of suspects.

Won:

Descended by Blood

by Angeline Kace


Brooke Keller is a high school junior who has never spent much time living in one place. She is finally in a town long enough to almost snag the boy of her dreams, until her life is threatened after killing a fanged man in his attempt to kidnap her. Brooke begins a dangerous journey in an effort to find out who is after her and how to stop them. In a world with powerful and prejudiced vampires, Brooke must tap into the side of her that she never knew existed at the risk of losing her life in order to save it.

Purchased:

The Open Canvas

by Carolyn Ambuter

Experts and beginners alike can create extraordinary works of art with the openwork techniques explored and richly illustrated in The Open Canvas.  Providing clear, thorough instructions for hundreds of different decorative stitches, Carolyn Ambuter brings to life this centuries-old embroidery art, in which fabric is pulled, cut, and stitched to produce beautifully intricate designs.

The Open Canvas offers six books in one, assembling and cataloging techniques for the full range of openwork styles, including Pulled Canvas, Needleweaving, Hemstitching, Filet, Hardanger, Reticello and Hedebo.  Lessons build in a systematic sequence, with multiple diagrams and step-by-step directions for every stitch from the basic Buttonhole Edge to the refinded  Point D'Angleterre.

In each discipline, all stitches are diagrammed on large-mesh canvas and shown in black-and-white photographs.  Sixteen pages in full-color offer close examination of thread shadings and are resplendent with sampler patterns.  Notes on the history and lore of openwork are included, as well as checklists of required materials.

The Open Canvas is a complete, accessible, and inviting primer that makes it easy to turn an ordinary canvas into a special and unique creation.

What came home to your mailbox this week?

Hades by Alexandra Adornetto - Book Trailer and Giveaway!

Hades 
(Halo Book 2)

by Alexandra Adornetto

Bethany and Xavier are even closer since battling Jake Thorn and his evil influence (in Halo) and Beth and her angel siblings must still protect Venus Cove from the Dark Forces.


When a party game – a séance – inadvertently releases Jake from the Underworld, he disguises himself and tricks Beth into taking a ride on his motorcycle. When the highway opens up and swallows them, Beth learns too late that she’s now a prisoner in hell. What happens to angels there? As her archangel brother, Gabriel, her sister Ivy, Xavier, and her best friend, Molly search for her, Beth must weigh Jake’s bargaining for her freedom: one night with him, and she will be released back to Earth.
Can Jake be trusted in this wager? And is he also using Beth to engineer the fall of the archangel Gabriel? Xavier has already lost one love – when Jake tricks him into thinking that Bethany is dead, his grief and anger result in a betrayal that will leave Bethany – and readers – wondering if he is so good after all.


It will be up to Beth to use everything she’s learned about her powers as an angel – and about love – to free herself and those she loves from the clutches of Hades

Like Alexandra Adornetto on Facebook.
Follow the Pen Fatale Tour on Facebook.

 

 

This giveaway is open to US/Canada only and will end at Midnight CST on Sept 11, 2011.  Please be a GFC follower to enter.  (If my follower button is not loading - please go here.)

Young Love - Mat Kearney - CD Review

I am no music officiando, and I don't have nearly as much time to listen to music as I used to, but I do like to find new artists to listen to when I do have the time.  Mat Kearney is one that I will be looking forward to hearing more of in the future.   He has had songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Pop 100.  His songs have been featured on many TV shows over the last couple of years, including some of my favorites - Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, Bones and The Vampire Diaries.

Take a listen to Hey Mama, the first track on Young Love, and see if you don't find yourself clapping along.




Here is the list of songs in order:
Hey Mama
Ships in the Night
Count on Me
Sooner or Later
Chasing the Light
Learning to Love Again
Down
She Got the Honey
Young Dumb and in Love
Rochester



You can find Mat around the web:
Mat Kearney Website
Mat's iTunes Page
Mat's Facebook Page

~I received a complimentary copy of this CD from One 2 One Network in exchange for my review.~