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Sunrise Over Fallujah Read-a-Long Final Week

February 28, 2014 by

This is the final week of the February read-a-long for Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers at the War Through the Generations blog for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

The questions are up, please stop by and offer your thoughts on pages 215-end of the novel.

  • Click here for this week’s questions. 
  • For the first week’s questions, go here.
  • For the second week’s questions, go here.
  • Third week’s questions are here.

Also if you have reviews for the Gulf Wars, you can link them here.

You’ll see my review for this book next week!

Filed Under: 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, announcements, challenges Tagged With: , , ,

Ripper by Isabel Allende

February 27, 2014 by


Source: Harper and TLC Book Tours
Hardcover, 496 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

 

Young Amanda Jackson is the game master for an online game, Ripper, in which participants — including her grandfather — examine evidence of heinous crimes and try to solve them. Up until recently, the gamers had focused on Jack the Ripper and other past cases, but when a rash of murders with unusual elements surface after a bloody premonition by local psychic Celeste Roko, the members set their sights on solving the new crimes. Ripper by Isabel Allende, translated by Oliver Bock and Frank Wynne, psychologically gets under the skin of the reader as they meet with the Ripper members and become part of the characters’ lives — Indiana, a homeopathic healer and Amanda’s mother; Ryan Miller, an ex-Navy SEAL and security specialist; Pedro Alarcón, Miller’s business partner and former guerrilla fighter from Uruguay; Alan Keller, a socialite man quickly running out of prestige and pennies; and more.

“The cold was like a sudden blow to the body, but soon he was feeling the heady euphoria of a swimmer.  At moments like this — feeling weightless as he defied the treacherous currents, withstanding the near-freezing temperatures that made his bones creak, propelling himself with the powerful muscles in his arms and his back — he was once again the man he used to be.  After a few strokes he no longer felt the cold, and could focus on his breathing, his speed and his direction, orienting himself by the buoys that he could just pick out through his goggles and the fog.”  (page 150 ARC)

Amanda’s online detective game becomes more real than she expects, and the consequences of not solving the case are more dire than she would ever have imagined.  While her mother is free-spirited and lives on little, Amanda longs for something greater, taking cues from her father’s investigations as a policeman and the novels and books she reads on some of the greatest crimes in history.  Graduating from a fascination with wolves and vampires, Amanda has set in motion the ultimate game to pass time with her online friends, but when murders and kidnappings begin to hit too close to home, she has little choice but to take matters into her own hands.

Allende’s modern setting of San Francisco comes alive, with its mysterious fog obscuring some of the characters until such a time they are revealed in their full, flawed glory.  Although the plot is slow moving and the narrative jumps between characters — giving detailed descriptions of their pasts and current issues — Allende is creating a quilt of intrigue, leaving readers to shuffle through the red herrings and the clues to solve the mystery.  What’s stunning here is her characters, particularly ex-Navy SEAL Ryan Miller and his issues with PTSD following a raid in Afghanistan and Indiana with her unending capacity to give to others.  Ripper by Isabel Allende deliberately uncovers psychological motivations in each character, peeling back the skin a little bit at the time to reveal not only petty jealousies but the selflessness of love and family connection.

About the Author:

Isabel Allende is the bestselling author of twelve works of fiction, four memoirs, and three young adult novels, which have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages, with more than 57 million copies sold. In 2004, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award in 2012. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California. Find out more about Allende, her books, and her foundation and visit her on Facebook.

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, Harper Collins, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2014, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: , , , ,

House of Glass by Sophie Littlefield

February 26, 2014 by

Source: Kaye Publicity
Paperback; 304 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

House of Glass by Sophie Littlefield is a heartbreaking tale of family secrets and how a family pulls together even when their bonds are frayed and challenged.  Jen Glass has the perfect life — a husband and two kids in a big house and a good career — but that life is shattered one evening when her house is invaded by strangers with guns.  Jen has a niggling suspicion that her husband has been keeping things from her, and her relationship with her daughter Livvy has been rocky — as most relationships between teens and parents are, but her son has been progressing in therapy for his selective mutism.  When she and her sister, Tanya, take off to make funeral arrangements for their estranged and low-life father, Sid, events are set in motion that cannot be undone.

“Tanya always made fun of Jen’s list making, so she had kept this one hidden away.  But what Tanya didn’t understand was that when you wrote a list, it forced you to organize your thoughts, so when the time came to act, you didn’t waste time on false starts and dead ends.  A list could make an unpleasant task go more quickly.  And this day, attending to the details of the passing of a man Jen hadn’t seen or talked to in almost three decades, couldn’t go quickly enough.”  (page 10 ARC)

The tension in the relationship between Jen and Tanya is pushed aside to deal with the unpleasantness of their father’s passing, but once the moment is over, they part ways, though Jen wishes they could erase the past and begin again.  The tension is similar in her relationship with her husband, Ted, who has been out of work for some time and taken to home improvement projects while he looks for work.  Unfortunately, Jen can’t control the progress or outcome, and it seems like Ted is barely trying and disappearing for long stretches with little to show for his time away.  Her suspicions increase when she finds messages from his former assistant and the fact that the clothes he wore to the gym are missing.  But Jen is barely scratching the surface, preferring to instead live in a happy bubble and ignore the truth.

Littlefield has created a family dynamic with a lot of moving parts, but she handles each character with a deft hand, ensuring that none of the lines blur and that readers can clearly discern their motivations, feelings, and secrets.  When the robbers enter the house even more of Jen’s controlled life is tested, and she must determine just how far she will go to protect her family from harm.  Woven into this thriller is the mystery of these men and where they come from and how they chose the Glass family as their targets.  House of Glass by Sophie Littlefield is fast-paced, thrilling, and psychological as Jen Glass is forced to examine the protections she thought she built high enough around her family and how her controlling methods have left them vulnerable to the unpredictable.

About the Author:

Sophie Littlefield grew up in rural Missouri, the middle child of a professor and an artist. She has been writing stories since childhood. After taking a hiatus to raise her children, she sold her first book in 2008, and has since authored over a dozen novels in several genres. Sophie’s novels have won Anthony and RT Book Awards and been shortlisted for Edgar, Barry, Crimespree, Macavity, and Goodreads Choice Awards. In addition to women’s fiction, she writes the post-apocalyptic AFTERTIME series, the Stella Hardesty and Joe Bashir crime series, and thrillers for young adults. She is a past president of the San Francisco Romance Writers of America chapter. Sophie makes her home in northern California.

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, Read in 2014, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Still, At Your Door by Emma Eden Ramos

February 25, 2014 by

Source: Emma Eden Ramos, the author
Paperback, 135 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Still, At Your Door: A Fictional Memoir by Emma Eden Ramos is a powerhouse of emotion from the moment you begin. Sabrina Gibbons’ story is upended from the moment her mother drags them out of their abusive home in Butler, Penn, and drops them off with their grandparents in the Big Apple. Sabrina Gibbons’ past is just behind the scenes waiting to sweep you away as ‘Bri’ opens her journal, her memories, and her heart. She’s beginning a journey that’s much different from the one she’s been on with her mother, a journey full of promise and healing.

“There’s a hole in my shoe. I realize, curling my toes to hold in the tension, that my sand colored sock pokes through the top of my left sneaker. Perhaps the Wellness Center has extra shoes. They may be interested to know that I have a hole in my shoe. Sure, it isn’t a big hole but it may grow. If I continue to wiggle my toes, the hole could take over my entire shoe.” (page 27 ARC)

‘Bri’ is hopeful that her mother will return for her and her sisters — Missy and Grace — and that their lives as normal girls will end as quickly as it began. She’s the tempering force among her siblings, while Missy is as passionate and volatile as their mother, but Grace is just a typical youngster caught between her older sisters and things she doesn’t understand about her family dynamics. In addition to their new living situation, Bri and her sisters also must contend with being the new girls in school and all the peer pressure that comes with that. After being “homeschooled” by their mother and shuffled from town to town, they face even more pressure to conform than they expect.

As Bri tries to live a normal childhood, keep her grades up, and deal with the teens at her school who see her and her sisters as an outsider, she’s also secretly hoping for her mother to come back to bring them home. As their lives become more settled and Bri begins to find herself at ease, events conspire to push her and her family over the brink.

When the school opts for A Streetcar Named Desire as the play they will put on, Bri impulsively decides that she must try out for the role of Blanche, the role she saw her mother play years ago. A role that took on a life of its own, but despite her plans, life has its own ideas. Like New York City, Still, At Your Door precariously teeters between nightmares and dreams, exploring mutual dependence where one wrong step over the threshold can lead to disaster.

Check out the book trailer:

EmmaEdenRamos
About the Author:

Emma Eden Ramos is a writer and student from New York City. Her middle grade novella, The Realm of the Lost, was recently published by MuseItUp Publishing. Her short stories have appeared in Stories for Children Magazine, The Storyteller Tymes, BlazeVOX Journal, and other journals. Ramos’ novelette, Where the Children Play, is included in Resilience: Stories, Poems, Essays, Words for LGBT Teens, edited by Eric Nguyen. Three Women: A Poetic Triptych and Selected Poems (Heavy Hands Ink, 2011), Ramos’ first poetry chapbook, was shortlisted for the 2011 Independent Literary Award in Poetry. Emma studies psychology at Marymount Manhattan College. When she isn’t writing or studying, Emma can usually be found drinking green tea and reading on her kindle. Please read an excerpt.

Filed Under: fiction, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews, young adult fiction Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #259

February 24, 2014 by

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has gone through a few incarnations from a permanent home with Marcia to a tour of other blogs.

Now, it has its own permanent home at its own blog.

To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links.  Leave yours too.

Also, each week, Leslie, Vicki, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.

Here’s what I received:

1.  A Year With Six Sisters’ Stuff for review in March.

With more than 150 new recipes, complete with individual pictures, shopping lists, and easy-to-follow instructions. Six Sisters’ Stuff transforms an overwhelming list of recipes and ingredients into a no-hassle, tasty meal schedule the whole family will enjoy. You will learn how the Sis Sisters bring their families to the table with fun family traditions and kid-friendly meals. SixSistersStuff.com continues to be an online phenomenon: More than 5 million page views per month More than 170,000 Facebook followers Nearly 10,000 followers on Twitter More than 280,000 followers on Pinterest.

2.  She Likes it Rough by GVR Corcillo for review in April/May.

Can daring adventures with an outdoor extremist give a daydreaming pushover the courage to make her life count for something? Lisa Flyte needs a backbone. For thirty-four years, she’s let life plow right over her – and that humiliating freak fast-food accident was the last straw! Time to get tough and start living out loud. But…how? When Lisa learns that adrenaline junkie Jack Hawkins needs a clueless urbanite to test his top-secret line of beginner adventure gear, they strike a deal: she’ll be his undercover test dummy if he helps her get brave during their adventures in the wild. But can the moxie Lisa discovers in the great outdoors help her pursue a career she really wants or stand up to her bullying family? And can it make her gutsy enough to go after Jack? He’s a man who’s not afraid of anything…except maybe of falling for Lisa.

3.  Never Too Little to Love by Jeanne Willis, illustrated by Jen Fearnley from the little one’s Nana.

Tiny Too-Little loves someone who’s very, very tall, and Tiny wants a kiss. What if he stands on his tiptoes on top of a thimble? What if he stands on his tiptoes on top of a matchbox on top of a thimble? Clever cut-away pages show Tiny’s precarious pile growing higher and higher, while the object of his affection stays just out of reach. When the teetering stack finally falls with a crash, will his hopes be dashed? How can a tiny mouse get the kiss he needs?

 

4.  The Story of Valentine’s Day by Nancy J. Skarmeas, illustrated by Stacy Venturi-Pickett from the little one’s Nana.

Here is a little board book that explains in simple terms the story of the origin of Valentine’s Day. From today’s celebrations to their link to the day’s beginnings, the holiday of valentines and candy hearts is explained so that even the youngest reader will understand. A new, convenient size and vibrant art make this board book a wonderful Valentine’s Day gift for little hands to grasp. Ages 2-5.

5.  William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back by Ian Doescher for review.

Hot on the heels of the New York Times best seller William Shakespeare’s Star Wars comes the next two installments of the original trilogy: William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back and William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return. Return to the star-crossed galaxy far, far away as the brooding young hero, a power-mad emperor, and their jesting droids match wits, struggle for power, and soliloquize in elegant and impeccable iambic pentameter. Illustrated with beautiful black-and-white Elizabethan-style artwork, these two plays offer essential reading for all ages. Something Wookiee this way comes!

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

242nd Virtual Poetry Circle

February 22, 2014 by

Welcome to the 242nd Virtual Poetry Circle!

Remember, this is just for fun and is not meant to be stressful.

Keep in mind what Molly Peacock’s book suggested.

Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. If you missed my review of her book, check it out here.

Also, sign up for the 2014 Dive Into Poetry Reading Challenge because there are several levels of participation for your comfort level.

For more poetry, check out the stops on the 2013 National Poetry Month Blog Tour and the 2012 National Poetry Month Blog Tour.  And think about participating in the 2014 National Poetry Month Blog Tour — signups will begin in March.

Today’s poem is from Farnoosh Fathi from Great Guns:

Brasil

Left a hole on fire agony or was it the sun
on the banks and near duets?
Eagles with the white wine of the sun
clink and spill, tall
grass over head and heels
. . . Space of hell: shy, inscribed already
but alone— I think I can be that

again, a new hole in the ongoing flute.
In a leap, the country glows— to hone
the fate that wonder exacts,
to go netted through that much,
so heavy as paperweights angels land
square on chaparral nerves.
And since names must give in spades,
out of sorts like these, your reactions
may swell great fountain lips—
a promise that a wish will purge
or pennies caravan the safe
return hearts cross.

What do you think?

Filed Under: virtual poetry circle Tagged With: ,

Sunrise Over Fallujah Read-a-Long Week 3

February 21, 2014 by

Today is the third week in the February read-a-long for Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers at the War Through the Generations blog for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

The questions are up, please stop by and offer your thoughts on pages 153-214 of the novel.

Click here for this week’s questions. 

For the first week’s questions, go here.

For the second week’s questions, go here.

Also if you have reviews for the Gulf Wars, you can link them here.

Filed Under: 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, announcements, challenges Tagged With: , , ,

Ten Thousand Sorrows: The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan by Elizabeth Kim

February 20, 2014 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 240 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Ten Thousand Sorrows: The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan by Elizabeth Kim is a memoir from a young Korean War orphan who never knew her father, was shunned as a non-person in Korea, and was subject to further psychological and physical abuse after her adoption.  This woman suffered greatly and mostly in silence for many years before and after her adoption by American, Christian fundamentalists.  The differences between her lush green Korean homeland and her new American desert home reflect the stark demarcations between her old life and being saved.

“There is no record of my birth, or of my name.  There is no record of my mother’s brief life.” (from the Prologue)

Born to a Korean mother, who left her tiny village for Seoul to sing, and an American soldier father, whom she never knew, Elizabeth has no notion of her birth name or date, nor her father’s name.  Her earliest memories are of life as a honhyol, a nonperson of mixed heritage shunned by the Korean culture, with her mother, Omma.  As outcasts in their village, they were subjected to shunning, stone throwing, and other abuses, but they were expected to bow to others and give way to the village leaders, Omma’s father and other family, when walking about.  Omma created a secluded and secure life for her child, though it was not without harsh work in the rice paddies or isolation.  The world they lived in may not have had a great deal of comforts and amenities, but it was certainly filled with calm and love.  In an honor killing, she is left alone in the world and dropped unceremoniously at an orphanage.

“Omma’s brother did all the talking.  He told her the family had discussed the matter again since presenting demands to her that afternoon in the field, and he, his father, and his wife were there to carry out the plan.  A family had offered to take the honhyol–me–into their home as a servant.”  (page 8)

“Sitting in the cage, nails dug deep into my skim, I tried to ameliorate grief by increasing my physical pain.  And just below the awareness of that misery, breathing rhythmically like a monster waiting to devour me, was the knowledge that it was because of me Omma died.  My face and my dishonorable blood had killed the only person I loved and the only person who loved me.” (page 33)

Like her Korean home where women are expected to be subservient to men and obey without question, Elizabeth is whisked across the ocean — to a land her mother described as full of promise — to America and new parents.  Her tiny life has begun again, but darkness descends upon her as she realizes that the American dream she’d thought was there is tarnished by a fundamentalism that snowballs into systematic abuse.  From her abusive parents to her physically abusive husband, Kim’s journey was rough and through it all, she struggled to survive, with the hope that there was freedom and something better in her future.

Ten Thousand Sorrows: The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan by Elizabeth Kim demonstrates the clash of cultures between foreign adopted children and American homes, particularly homes with fervent religious beliefs, but also the continued discrimination she felt as a mixed race child, despite her father’s American heritage.  In Korea, she was a nonperson, and in America, she is treated in much the same way — leaving her with a battered and nearly non-existent self-esteem.  This dark memoir, however, does not focus on bitterness or resentment, but on how these events and abuses transformed her into a highly ambitious reporter and mother.  While still broken inside, she manages to give her daughter a loving home and stability as a single parent.  Although there are clearly moments of clear hatred of Christianity, particularly in its fundamental form, the novel is more about redemption and acceptance of oneself despite the outside forces that strive to strike us down.

About the Author:

Elizabeth Kim is a journalist and the author of the best selling novel “Ten Thousand Sorrows”, which has been chronicled in O, Oprah Winfrey’s magazine.

5th book (Korean War) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

9th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, borrowed copy, challenges, memoir, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, reviews Tagged With: ,

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher

February 19, 2014 by

Source: Quirk Books
Hardcover, 174 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher is another entertaining mix of classics and modern pop culture, combining the iambic pentameter and language of Shakespeare with the modern pomp of science fiction movies by George Lucas.  Doescher uses the plot and characters of the original Star Wars movie with an inventive and lyrical play format from Shakespeare.  He combines his knowledge of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and other plays with the pop culture of space travel.

“”O gods above, why have I once again
Been short with R2, sending him away?
I trust he knoweth well I hold him dear,
Though in his presence oft my speech is cruel.
‘Tis words that do betray my better self
When harshly they express my droidly rage.'” (page 21)

What’s most interesting is how he translates R2-D2’s beeps and ticks into thoughts and statements to C-3PO and the other characters.  These droids garner more human-like qualities through the Shakespearean language. Complete with asides and soliloquy, Doescher clearly has studied not only Star Wars but also Shakespeare’s plays and methods. In the back of the book, he talks about the similarities between the two greats and the influence of classic myths and archetypes that came before them.  And like any mesh of pop culture and classics, this novel includes more modern language and drawings to illustrate what would occur on stage.  In some cases, a Greek play-like chorus is used to narrate the action.  One of the best scenes happens when Luke Skywalker, like Hamlet, speaks to the helmet of a stormtrooper as if it were Poor Yorick.

“Forsooth, a great disturbance in the Force
Have I just felt. ‘Twas like a million mouths
Cried out in fear at once, and then were gone,
All hush’d and quiet–silent to the last.
I fear a stroke of evil hath occurr’d.” (page 88-9)

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher is just the first installment in another line of Quirk Books that is bound to find a willing audience.  This action-packed retelling does not stray far from George Lucas’ creation, but what’s intriguing is how Doescher uses Shakespearean language to spice up the drama.  It’s witty and fun, though the term “verily” seems a bit overused.  At any rate, an entertaining novel to spend a rainy afternoon or snowed in evening with.

About the Author:

Ian Doescher has loved Shakespeare since eighth grade and was born 45 days after Star Wars Episode IV was released. He has a B.A. in Music from Yale University, a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Ethics from Union Theological Seminary. Ian lives in Portland, Oregon, with his spouse Jennifer and two sons. William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is his first book. Visit Ian online at www.iandoescher.com. [Photo by Shan Applegate]

8th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Quirk Classics, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: ,

Still Love in Strange Places by Beth Kephart

February 18, 2014 by

Source: Gift from LibraryThing SantaThing
Paperback, 240 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Still Love in Strange Places by Beth Kephart is part travel, cultural immersion, and marital memoir.  El Salvador, the country of her husband’s birth, is seismologically and politically volatile, much like a marriage can be as we seek similarities and rarely understand the differences between us when we first begin a life together.  Kephart speaks of her husband’s country as someone who has never traveled to Central America before and only knows about the country from the horrific political turmoil and devastating earthquakes she has seen on the news.  She begins the novel very much on the outside of her husband’s life before he went to the United States for college and married her, living a suburban, quiet, American life.

“When I married my husband, I married into all of this.  I married a legacy, traditions, danger.  I married a man who is not at home unless he’s standing in the shadows of his grandfather’s land or asserting the privileges of a jeep on jungle roads.  My husband isn’t home here, where we together live, and yet years would go by before I could begin to understand, before my imagination would let me close to where he’d come from.”  (page 10-11)

For a woman that has lived a very privileged American life — for that’s what she says — her experiences traveling were limited to very advanced economies, rather than the more emerging markets in Central America, which have had a harder time coming together and staying together socially and politically.  Speaking only English, as many Americans do, arriving in a country where Spanish is spoken in rapid, unending bursts with little time to pause and translate, Kephart illustrates her loneliness and her separateness when she perches in a tree and merely watches from afar as her husband reconnects with his home and his family.  This separateness is partly her own making because of her almost desperate need to be part of his family in all ways, but also her desire to pull him back into the world of their American life so that she can be more comfortable.

However, this is not just a memoir about a marriage; it is also a memoir about coming to love a country and a culture that at first seems so foreign and incomprehensible to her.  As she sets out to tell her son about his father’s life before America and his heritage, Kephart learns that there is love in the strangest of places — places that were once alien, places that made her feel separate and foreign herself.

What’s beautiful about the memoir is that it doesn’t focus on the rifts or the arguments or the silences these differences between her and her husband may have caused, it is focused on a woman immersing herself in the culture, a history, a people and its coffee.  Through its history — political and otherwise — Kephart paints a picture of a country that struggles with its own land and its own people to find itself.  El Salvador comes alive in her hands, becomes a living, breathing being with its beauty and darkness, and while there are frightening times of civil unrest and bandits, Kephart is huddled in the family bubble — cradled in their acceptance of her.

“It was an accident, Bill’s falling in love with me.  It was a risk, binding himself up in a marriage to an American girl, a suburban girl so entirely naive that she thought she’d be somehow big enough to hold him.”  (page 127)

Still Love in Strange Places by Beth Kephart is about love and learning to love even the strangest parts of ourselves and our spouses, it’s a love that embraces everything despite our initial fears and misgivings and misunderstandings.  Love should be big enough not only to conquer all, but also to breed acceptance for what we do not understand or know about ourselves and those we love.  Love is an expansion of who and what we are; it is the exploration and embracing of what is outside of us and bringing that into ourselves.

About the Author:

Beth Kephart is the author of 10 books, including the National Book Award finalist A Slant of Sun; the Book Sense pick Ghosts in the Garden; the autobiography of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, Flow; the acclaimed business fable Zenobia; and the critically acclaimed novels for young adults, Undercover and House of Dance. A third YA novel, Nothing but Ghosts, published in June 2009, and a fourth young adult novel, The Heart Is Not a Size, released in March 2010.

Kephart is a winner of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fiction grant, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Leeway grant, a Pew Fellowships in the Arts grant, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. Kephart’s essays are frequently anthologized, she has judged numerous competitions, and she has taught workshops at many institutions, to all ages. She teaches the advanced nonfiction workshop at the University of Pennsylvania.

Filed Under: memoir, purchased, Read in 2014, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Mailbox Monday #258

February 17, 2014 by

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has gone through a few incarnations from a permanent home with Marcia to a tour of other blogs.

Now, it has its own permanent home at its own blog.

To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links.  Leave yours too.

Also, each week, Leslie, Vicki, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.

Here’s what I received:

1.  Going Over by Beth Kephart from Chronicle Books for review before the April 1 publication.

In the early 1980s Ada and Stefan are young, would-be lovers living on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall–Ada lives with her mother and grandmother and paints graffiti on the Wall, and Stefan lives with his grandmother in the East and dreams of escaping to the West.

 

2.  The Rebel Pirate by Donna Thorland for review in March.

1775, Boston Harbor. James Sparhawk, Master and Commander in the British Navy, knows trouble when he sees it. The ship he’s boarded is carrying ammunition and gold…into a country on the knife’s edge of war. Sparhawk’s duty is clear: confiscate the cargo, impound the vessel and seize the crew. But when one of the ship’s boys turns out to be a lovely girl, with a loaded pistol and dead-shot aim, Sparhawk finds himself held hostage aboard a Rebel privateer.

Sarah Ward never set out to break the law. Before Boston became a powder keg, she was poised to escape the stigma of being a notorious pirate’s daughter by wedding Micah Wild, one of Salem’s most successful merchants. Then a Patriot mob destroyed her fortune and Wild played her false by marrying her best friend and smuggling a chest of Rebel gold aboard her family’s ship.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , ,

Sunrise Over Fallujah Read-a-Long Week 2

February 16, 2014 by

This past Friday was the second week in the February read-a-long for Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers at the War Through the Generations blog for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

The questions are up, please stop by and offer your thoughts on pages 87-152 of the novel.

Click here for this week’s questions. 

For the first week’s questions, go here.

Also if you have reviews for the Gulf Wars, you can link them here.

Filed Under: 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, announcements, challenges Tagged With: , , ,