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Mailbox Monday #671

February 21, 2022 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Velvet, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

This is what we received:

Where We Stand: Poems of Black Resilience edited by Melanie Henderson, Enzo Silon Surin, and Truth Thomas

“This anthology is the official answer for how we/us survived the apex of multiple pandemics. With recipes for survival like Tara Betts’ “Stay Lit” and ol’ school incantations illuminating truths like Kenneth Carroll’s “This Muvfucka,” we marry ourselves to the future, without ever once forgetting what Lisa Pegram says, “Even a sponge has a saturation point.” Part declaration of not dependent, part sacred text, this collection is both who we are and how we shall continue to be—all in the same breath.”

– Frank X. Walker, author of Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems and Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers.

Make Me Rain by Nikki Giovanni, which I purchased.

For more than fifty years, Nikki Giovanni’s poetry has dazzled and inspired readers. As sharp and outspoken as ever, she returns with this profound book of poetry in which she continues to call attention to injustice and racism, celebrate Black culture and Black lives, and give readers an unfiltered look into her own experiences.

In Make Me Rain, she celebrates her loved ones and unapologetically declares her pride in her Black heritage, while exploring the enduring impact of the twin sins of racism and white nationalism. Giovanni reaffirms her place as a uniquely vibrant and relevant American voice with poems such as “I Come from Athletes” and “Rainy Days”—calling out segregation and Donald Trump; as well as “Unloved (for Aunt Cleota)” and “When I Could No Longer”—her personal elegy for the relatives who saved her from an abusive home life.

Stirring, provocative, and resonant, the poems in Make Me Rain pierce the heart and nourish the soul.

Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo, which I purchased.

In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a haunting, visionary memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice.

With Love From London by Sarah Jio, which I purchased.

When Valentina Baker was only eleven years old, her mother, Eloise, unexpectedly fled to her native London, leaving Val and her father on their own in California. Now a librarian in her thirties, fresh out of a failed marriage and still at odds with her mother’s abandonment, Val feels disenchanted with her life.

In a bittersweet twist of fate, she receives word that Eloise has died, leaving Val the deed to her mother’s Primrose Hill apartment and the Book Garden, the storied bookshop she opened almost two decades prior. Though the news is devastating, Val jumps at the chance for a new beginning and jets across the Atlantic, hoping to learn who her mother truly was while mourning the relationship they never had.

As Val begins to piece together Eloise’s life in the U.K., she finds herself falling in love with the pastel-colored third-floor flat and the cozy, treasure-filled bookshop, soon realizing that her mother’s life was much more complicated than she ever imagined. When Val stumbles across a series of intriguing notes left in a beloved old novel, she sets out to locate the book’s mysterious former owner, though her efforts are challenged from the start, as is the Book Garden’s future. In order to save the store from financial ruin and preserve her mother’s legacy, she must rally its eccentric staff and journey deep into her mother’s secrets. With Love from London is a story about healing and loss, revealing the emotional, relatable truths about love, family, and forgiveness.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, which I purchased after I saw it on Book Chatter.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

Falling Leaves: An Interfaith Anthology on the Topic of Consolation and Loss edited by Susan Meehan and Robert Bettmann, which I purchased.

Arising from a time of unprecedented trauma and loss, this collection of poems sets its readers on a healing journey… An encouraging read for those in despair, and for those just needing to know that they are not alone.

— The Rev. Dr. David B. Lindsey, Interfaith Council of Metropolitan Washington (DC)

The book gathers more than 40 poems by DC area poets on the topic, organized into sections on New Prayer, Acceptance, Loss, and Healing. Contributors include: Jeffrey Banks, Katya Buresh, Regie Cabico. Chris Farago, Stephanie Gemmell, Kira Hall, Laura Hart, W. Luther Jett, Jacqueline Jules, Michele Kay, Brian Leibold, Laura Martin, Susan Meehan, Kim B. Miller, Anna Postelnyak, Bernard Riefner, Dominique Rispoli, Jane Schapiro, Ori Z Soltes, Lori Tsang, Phibby Venable, Walter Weinschenk, and Jon Wood.

What did you receive?

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

Dear Diaspora by Susan Nguyen

February 17, 2022 by

Source: GBF
Paperback, 78 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Dear Diaspora by Susan Nguyen, winner of The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, is almost a letter to those who have left their homeland in Vietnam. We begin with a flight in “The Body as a Series of Questions:” (pg. 1)

I was running fast because of what was behind me
the bridge existed a few steps before me then disappeared
through wooden slats rose the sound of rainwater
I absorbed the sound until there was nothing else

Suzi is a young teen of immigrant parents who is living an American dream, but she observes the hardships of her parents. A mother who comes home from working, “hair limp, deflated like a paper bag” in “Suzi’s Mother Does Nails” (pg. 7) Suzi sees the hardships, but she also sees the disappearances. Her father is a man who still seems to be running in the jungles to the waterways searching for fish, for something, on little to no sleep.

In “Letter to the Diaspora” (pg. 14), the poet asks, “Does memory eat the body?” Memory can be an all consuming beast sometimes, as we recall those we’ve lost, the past that is marred by danger and fleeing. Sometimes memory can consume you so much that you “exist at the edges.”

Dear Diaspora by Susan Nguyen is a stunning debut that looks trauma in the eyes and dares it to consume us. It’s a navigation of one generation through the grief of another. “Grief says little: yes, no. Does not say where her father has gone, does not say how to speak the language of her mother.” (“Sitting Down With Grief,” pg. 49)

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Susan Nguyen‘s debut poetry collection, Dear Diaspora, won the 2020 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was published by the University of Nebraska Press in Sept 2021.

Nguyen’s poetry is often interested in the body: how geography, history, and trauma leave markers, both visible and invisible. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize and have appeared or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, Tin House, Diagram, and elsewhere. She is an alum of Tin House Winter & Summer Workshops and Idyllwild Writers Week. Her hobbies, beyond reading and writing, include photography, zinemaking, hiking, and otherwise being outdoors.

Nguyen recieved her BA, English from Virginia Tech and her MFA, poetry from Arizona State University where she was the poetry editor for Hayden’s Ferry Review. She has taught creative writing at ASU and the National University of Singapore and she received a fellowship from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing to conduct an oral history project centered on the Vietnamese diaspora. She was named one of “three women poets to watch in 2018” by PBS NewsHour.

Follow her on Instagram.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Will by Will Smith (audio)

February 16, 2022 by

Source: Purchased
Audiobook, 16+ hrs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Will by Will Smith, narrated by the author, is a phenomenal memoir about his family, his rise to fame, his will to be the best rapper and movie star, and his struggles with emotions. Narrated by Smith himself is like a trip and Audible has me at go when the music of these icons is included for listening. Smith still has those rapping chops — don’t think he doesn’t. But even with his struggles, it is clear that he’s in a place where he is still projecting a little bit of that personal, rather than actual self that he seems to be still searching for. After all, this is a memoir that he hopes will entertain and sell a lot of books.

There were things I already knew in this book from the Fresh Prince Reunion and from conversations during Jada Pinkett’s Red Table Talks. But I will say this, it is clear from Will’s point of view that he does what he does because he loves his family and he wants to give them the life that he didn’t feel like he had, but what he failed to see is that they are not him — they have different needs and desires. Even with Jada, he clearly wanted to create memories as he believed they should be — much of what he does is to create cinematic movies of his memories. He wants to will things into being to reach some sort of ideal. Jada, for her part, clearly loves him and all his faults, but she failed (at least from what I could tell) to express her wants/needs/desires in a way that he heard her and acknowledged them.

But this book is not about just his relationship with Jada. Like many creatives, there are visions we want to achieve and sometimes they work as we see them and sometimes we need to adjust to how those visions can actually be achieved. Gigi, his grandmother, was a wise woman. She believed in being kind and helping others no matter what, and this is something Will took to heart. You can see that in how he helps his friends, family, and even strangers get a leg up and achieve their own dreams, but one piece of advice from his mother that he forgot to embody was only speaking when it improved on silence.

Will clearly loves to talk and joke, but there is something that scares him about silence. This can be traced to those memories of domestic violence by his father against his mother. He stood in silence as his mother was hurt by his father – that inaction shaped him into the boisterous, charismatic clown he is.

Will by Will Smith is vulnerable, reflective, and harsh as Smith examines his past, present, and future. Like many of us who seek to be better and learn from mistakes, he is still on that journey. Is there stuff for the gossip rags? Yes. Will it be exploited? Probably. But was this journey cathartic for Smith and the reader? Definitely. We’re all deeply flawed, and Smith shows us that even our flaws can be channeled to make ourselves successful at least financially, but is that enough? Or should we be learning to adjust our lives and lead richer experiences with those we love?

RATING: Cinquain

Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, memoir, New Authors Challenge, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, random house, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Your Words, Your World by Louise Bélanger

February 15, 2022 by

Source: the Poet
Paperback, 99 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Your Words, Your World by Louise Bélanger, which toured with Poetic Book Tours, is a collection of nature photography and poetry. To me, however, the poems read more like a daily devotional, something many of us may need as the pandemic continues into its 3rd year. It’s a collection that reminds us of the beauty around us and how we tend to be too busy with our lives to notice the miracles in our gardens or parks.

from "The contest" (pg.19-20)

....
"And the fragrance of each flower
When mixed together was exquisite."

Then they understood
No flower is the best
Separately they don't win the contest
The winning comes when they are together
....

Many of these poems are reliant on a faith in God and have a motherly quality to them. Some of the tone is like a mother speaking to a child, expressing ways to better navigate the world. Learning to get along with others, become part of a team, and work toward a common goal, rather than compete with one another in a contest we cannot win.

Many of the photos in the collection are flowers or nature related, but I absolutely loved the clouds paired with the poem “A handful of cloud”. A mother and child are outside together and he reaches for a blue cloud, but it is the wispy nature of the cotton candy that reminds us of pure joy. It is the sweetness of an innocent child, it is the ephemeral nature of life’s moments. Enjoy each one while you have it.

Your Words, Your World by Louise Bélanger can be turned to again and again in times of worry or stress. The photos alone will cause readers to take a breath and smile. The poems will remind them that life doesn’t have to be a frenzy.

Rating: Tercet

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2021, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #670

February 14, 2022 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Velvet, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

This is what we received:

Forces by Lisa Stice from the publisher.

Inspired by great works of visual art, writing, and sculpture—as well as small moments observed alongside her home-schooled daughter and beloved dog Seamus—poet and U.S. Marine Corps spouse Lisa Stice explores the invisible forces and frictions at work in our lives.

“Stice is a master of quiet revelation and connection,” says the publisher. “Her words illuminate how to find beauty, wonder, calm, and strength in a world that too often feels filled with ugliness and chaos.”

For example, in “Woman Holding a Balance,” Stice considers the image of Johannes Vermeer’s 1664 painting of the same name, revealing the grounded strength within:

behind her:
a healing grace
the salvation of forgiveness
promise and sacrifice

before her:
value weighed
an equal measure
dignity and decorum

within her:
blood of generations
nurturing warmth
a round-cheeked future

And, in “While Daddy’s at Training, Our Daughter Asks Questions”:

I don’t know how to explain 35,000 feet—
all I can say is it’s very high—yes, far above
our house and those trees, but no, not beyond
the moon or the stars—and how far are those?
but I don’t know how to explain that either.

When will he be back?—so I count the days,
point to them on the calendar—what is it like
in the sky?—I say I know it’s cold and difficult
to breathe, but I don’t know how to explain
50 below or the partial pressure of oxygen.

She pretends to be an airplane—can I skydive?—
and I say when you are much older, but I don’t
know if I’d want her to—she counts backwards
then jumps her couple inches—and my heart
rises before it falls back into place again.

What did books did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: ,

Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron

February 10, 2022 by

Source: Publisher
Hardcover, 336 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron is like Nancy Drew set during the time of Jane Austen’s life. Part of the title is inspired by the historic eruption of Mount Tambora, which caused some series climate effects, including crop failures, and led to the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816. I loved that Barron stayed true to the whereabouts (based on historic record) of Austen and her sister, Cassandra, when they took a trip to Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire.

Things in the Austen household are not all roses, but even as uncertainty lays claim to the family’s fortunes and to the reputation of Austen’s brother Charles, Jane and her sister take the time to travel to the waters, hoping to improve Jane’s health. Once there, the ladies encounter some very dull and dark characters who many of the other guests seem to be avoiding. The spas themselves are not at all what either lady expects, and in fact, they begin to wonder if the waters are bad for people’s health.

When a young lady in a basket chair turns up at Mrs. Potter’s where they are staying, Austen and her sister are even more intrigued. A captain, a devoted friend who protects her friend in the chair, and a mysterious theater dialect coach all add to the mystery when a Viscount shows up claiming the woman in the basket chair is his wife! When a pug ends up dead at Mrs. Potter’s and later a murder occurs at the local masquerade, Austen and the smitten Mr. West work together to uncover the truth of the murder.

Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron is a delightful who-done-it mystery whose main protagonist is one of the great observers of human nature, Jane Austen. I loved that Austen used her keen observation skills to unearth the truth of the mysteries within these pages. All of the characters have their own secrets, and there is even a bit of romance for Jane herself. Highly recommend for Jane Austen readers and those who love a good mystery!

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Francine Mathews was born in Binghamton, New York, the last of six girls. She attended Princeton and Stanford Universities, where she studied history, before going on to work as an intelligence analyst at the CIA. She wrote her first book in 1992 and left the Agency a year later. Since then, she has written twenty-five books, including five novels in the Merry Folger series (Death in the Off-Season, Death in Rough Water, Death in a Mood Indigo, Death in a Cold Hard Light, and Death on Nantucket) as well as the nationally bestselling Being a Jane Austen mystery series, which she writes under the pen name, Stephanie Barron. She lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Pinterest, and GoodReads.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2021, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Kindle Deal & Interview with Syrie James, author of Struck by Love series

February 9, 2022 by

Welcome to today’s interview with Syrie James, who’s here to talk about her Struck by Love series of books. Don’t forget to stay until the end for the Amazon Kindle deal.

Syrie James just revised, retitled, and rebranded two of her most popular romance novels as the Struck By Love series: FLOATING ON AIR and TWO WEEK DEAL. The books are set in the awesome 80s and are inspired by the early days of Syrie’s whirlwind romance with her late husband. More on that in Syrie’s new blog “7 Ways My Real-Life Romance Inspired FLOATING ON AIR.”

Before we get to the interview, let’s check out the first in the series, Floating on Air:

A siren called.
He answered.
A successful radio deejay embarks on a thrilling, long distance love affair with a charismatic entrepreneur, a relationship that plays havoc with her carefully controlled life—and heart.

On a hot summer’s day in 1986, Southern California radio deejay Desiree Germain is hosting a contest on the air when she’s entranced by the deeply masculine voice of caller number twelve.

Voices never matched faces. Desiree knows that better than anyone. As KICK’s hottest radio host, she has a sultry voice that leads people to expect a tall, voluptuous bombshell.

Petite in every sense of the word, she hardly lives up to that image. To Desiree’s surprise, caller number twelve turns out to be Kyle Harrison, a handsome, wealthy businessman from Seattle. Kyle has come to claim his prize—and her heart.

They are soon involved in a whirlwind love affair that makes Desiree’s heart sing. Is it worth the risk? All the rules say that long-distance romance and radio don’t mix.

But a man who is answering a siren’s call doesn’t care about rules!

Check out the second book in the series, Two Week Deal:

It’s just business.
Or madness!
In this romantic romp set in wintry Lake Tahoe, a talented graphic artist gets the opportunity of a lifetime working with the headstrong owner of an advertising agency.

But can business and pleasure mix?

At a holiday mixer on a cold winter's eve in December 1987, freelance graphic artist Kelli Ann Harrison gets an unexpected job offer that throws all her plans into disarray. She came to South Lake Tahoe to oversee the final phase of construction on her brother’s glamorous vacation house and hoped to get in a little skiing on the side.

But when Grant Pembroke, a smart, attractive, take-charge advertising executive invites her to team up with him for two weeks on an ad campaign for a local casino, it’s a proposition that’s too exciting to refuse.

Professionally, they make a wonderful team, coming up with one clever idea after another. But privately their strong personalities tend to clash, a situation further complicated by the high-voltage romantic charge that sizzles between them.

Is this two-week deal just business … or madness? If Kelli and Grant play their cards right, can a whirlwind love affair last forever?

Doesn’t that sound fantastic? We all need a bit of romance, don’t we?

Now, let’s sit down for a chat with Syrie James:

What has your writing journey been like? When and how did you start writing and what keeps you going?

I’ve been writing ever since I can remember. When I was in sixth grade, my grandparents noticed my obsession and gave me an old typewriter from their office. I started writing my first book on that typewriter but unfortunately, I never finished it. I had a fun premise but got halfway through and couldn’t figure out what should happen next. It was an excellent lesson about the importance of an outline! Today, I can’t imagine my life without writing. When I’m working on a book, I’m in my Happy Place.

Let’s talk about Floating on Air, formerly Songbird. What inspired you to revisit this series of novels? How has the process been for you?

Floating on Air is inspired by the early days of my romance with my late husband Bill. I miss him dearly and revisiting this book series was wonderful—it was like stepping back in time and reliving the thrilling days when we first met. I had forgotten how much humor there is in these books; they were both so much fun to write!

The new title Floating On Air is an homage both to the joyful state of mind of the heroine as she falls madly in love, and to her profession (she’s a radio disc jockey).

A book set in the 80s has got to pull out the big hair and the ripped jeans. What other delights will readers find in these pages?

I love the 80s! The clothes were so much fun. Desiree’s outfit of choice is a pair of super short denim cut-offs—remember those? It was a simpler time in terms of technology. There were no personal computers, no internet, no cell phones, no Facetime or texting. In some ways I liked that better—people actually called each other and wrote letters or showed up in person! In others way it was a challenge. Desiree and Kyle have to navigate a long-distance relationship, which was trickier at the time. For more on the subject, check out my blog, 8 Things I Love About the 80s!

Desiree is a radio deejay; what are some of the qualities she had to have? And what songs are on her playlist? What songs were on your mix tapes in the 80s?

Desiree is a successful radio deejay due to her cheerful upbeat personality and her deep sultry voice, which in her mind, leads people to expect her to be voluptuous bombshell. She has a complex about that because she’s petite and feels she doesn’t live up to the image.

I LOVE the music from the 80s. In the novel, Desiree plays such classics as Rita Coolidge’s “Be Mine Tonight,” Johnny Mathis’s “So in Love With You,” and Barbra Streisand’s “Songbird.”

My favorite 80s songs include “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Live” (from the film Dirty Dancing), “Walking on Sunshine,” “Uptown Girl,” and Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run” (from the film Working Girl). I smile every time I hear them!

How much of your own experiences are in this romance over the airwaves between Desiree and Kyle?

A lot! Floating on Air is based in so many ways on the early days of my whirlwind romance with my late husband that I wrote about it in my blog “7 Ways My Real-Life Romance Inspired FLOATING ON AIR.”

Book 2 in the series, Two Week Deal, is also full of personal details. It’s set in wintry Lake Tahoe (one of my favorite places). There’s skiing (one of my favorite sports); a red-hot, whirlwind romance; and lots of clever creative energy as the hero and heroine work together on an advertising campaign for a casino. I used to work in advertising and that was super fun to write!

What other projects are you working on? Any hints?

I’m working on a new book—all I’ll say is that it’s set in 19th century England, and I’m excited about it!

Lastly, if you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring writer, what would it be?

Study your craft. Write, write, write. And then rewrite. Listen to feedback. Be patient and persevere. Sometimes it takes a long time and many drafts for a story to reach its optimum potential. Most importantly: outline before you start. I highly recommend the Save the Cat story structure by Blake Snyder. It was developed for screenplays but is an invaluable foundation for every great story. I use its structure beats to outline every book I write.

A NOTE FROM SYRIE JAMES:

I hope you enjoy my Struck By Love novels as much as I enjoyed writing them! To keep up with my book news and blog posts, please visit my website, sign up for my newsletter, and follow my blog! I blog about the inspiration for my books, all kinds of historical topics of interest, and I post reviews of my favorite books. I look forward to seeing you there!

KINDLE DEAL!!

As a special Valentine’s Day promotion, FLOATING ON AIR is on sale now for only $.99 on Kindle. The discount runs Feb. 9 – Feb. 14.

About the Author:

Syrie: pronounced like the App, but spelled better.

SYRIE JAMES is the author of thirteen critically acclaimed novels of historical fiction, romance, and young adult fiction that have been international, USA Today, and Amazon bestsellers and won numerous awards. Her books are published in more than twenty languages. A research and story structure maven, Syrie is committed to taking her characters on challenging journeys of growth and discovery.

Syrie’s novel The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen sold at auction to HarperCollins in a bidding war between three major publishing houses, became an instant bestseller, and was a Library Journal Editor’s Pick of the Year (starred review). Syrie explores Jane Austen’s real-life romance as a teenager in Jane Austen’s First Love, also a Library Journal Editor’s Pick. The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen (starred review, Kirkus) offers the ultimate Janeite fantasy: the discovery of a long-lost Jane Austen novel.

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë won the Audiobook Audie Award and was named a Women’s National Book Association Great Group Read. Nocturne was an Amazon bestseller, Barnes and Noble’s Romantic Read of the Week, Best Novel of the Year by Suspense Magazine and Romance Reviews, and Bookbub’s Best Snowbound Romance.

Syrie’s contemporary romances Floating on Air and Two Week Deal, which she recently re-branded as the Struck By Love series, are set in the awesome 80s and are dear to her heart, because they’re inspired by her real-life romance with her late husband.

Syrie’s interest in the paranormal inspired her romantic thriller Dracula, My Love and the young adult series Forbidden, which she co-wrote with her son Ryan James. Syrie’s love of all things English led to a Victorian historical romance trilogy including the #1 Amazon bestsellers Duke Darcy’s Castle and Runaway Heiress.

A Writer’s Guild of America member, Syrie has sold scripts to film and television and adapted bestselling books to screen. Syrie’s work as a playwright has been produced off-Broadway in New York City as well as in California and Canada. A member of the Historical Novel Society of North America and the Jane Austen Society of North America, Syrie has addressed dozens of organizations, universities, and literary conferences across North America and in England.

Syrie lives in Los Angeles, where she is currently writing her next book.

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: , , ,

When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories by E. Ethelbert Miller

February 8, 2022 by

Source: GBF
Paperback, 96 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories by E. Ethelbert Miller is a collection that spans not only the love of baseball, but also wider themes of racism, gender issues, and loss. The collection opens with “Hit This” in which a ball curves after falling off a table. What a metaphor for life and baseball! Isn’t that just the way of things, we assume life is headed in one direction and then it takes a turn.

From "Roberto" (pg. 6)

We had gloves. Cheap gloves. Gloves
with no pockets no matter how much
we kept punching into the center of them.

The gloves had missing pockets
like our missing fathers who punched
our mothers and swung bats at our heads.

Our fathers were gone and we outgrew their
absence. Our hands became too large
for small gloves. Many were lost or stolen.

Miller’s plain language and emphasis on the childhood games of baseball in the streets and parks become larger metaphors for the violence and low-income struggles of these children’s lives. His lines pack a serious punch, particularly in “Roberto.” Many of the poems in this collection are like this. Remember that opening poem — the ball curves, and this is how each poem reads in Miller’s collection.

From "Kind of Blue" (pg. 15)

....A player swung
and sent a fly ball toward the outfield
fence. It went foul at the last moment
like love or a marriage striking an
empty wooden seat and bouncing
back to the field.

I had to look up Tommy John surgery, which I found out is the reconstruction of ligaments in the elbow and it’s a surgery most often done on pitchers. I like baseball and have written my own baseball poems, but mine are nothing like Miller’s poems. From a World Series played by survivors of earthquakes and climate change in “The World Series” to the hope that you’ll be remembered after the spring time of your youth in “Free Agent,” Miller’s baseball metaphors are larger than life, much like Whitey Ford and others who have played America’s favorite pastime.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

E. (Eugene) Ethelbert Miller was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1950. He attended Howard University and received a BA in African American studies in 1972. A self-described “literary activist,” Miller is on the board of the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive multi-issue think tank, and has served as director of the African American Studies Resource Center at Howard University since 1974. His collections of poetry include Andromeda (1974), The Land of Smiles and the Land of No Smiles (1974), Season of Hunger / Cry of Rain (1982), Where Are the Love Poems for Dictators? (1986), Whispers, Secrets and Promises (1998), and How We Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love (2004).

Miller is the editor of the anthologies Women Surviving Massacres and Men (1977); In Search of Color Everywhere (1994), which won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was a Book of the Month Club selection; and Beyond the Frontier (2002). He is the author of the memoir Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer (2000).

The mayor of Baltimore made Miller an honorary citizen of the city in 1994. He received a Columbia Merit Award in 1993 and was honored by First Lady Laura Bush at the White House in 2003. Miller has held positions as scholar-in-residence at George Mason University and as the Jessie Ball DuPont Scholar at Emory & Henry College. He has conducted writing workshops for soldiers and the families of soldiers through Operation Homecoming.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #669

February 7, 2022 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Velvet, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

This is what we received:

Push by Ashley Audrain, which I purchased.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.

But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter—she doesn’t behave like most children do.

Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.

Then their son Sam is born—and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.

Eternal by Lisa Scottoline, which I purchased.

What war destroys, only love can heal.

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta’s heart. But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy’s Fascists with Hitler’s Nazis and altering the very laws that govern Rome. In time, everything that the three hold dear–their families, their homes, and their connection to one another–is tested in ways they never could have imagined.

As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning. The Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city’s Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.

Unfolding over decades, Eternal is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war–all set in one of the world’s most beautiful cities at its darkest moment. This moving novel will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of readers.

What Flies Want by Emily Perez from the publisher.

In What Flies Want, disaster looms in domesticity: a family grapples with its members’ mental health, a marriage falters, and a child experiments with self-harm. With its backdrop of school lockdown drills, #MeToo, and increasing political polarization, the collection asks how these private and public tensions are interconnected.

The speaker, who grew up in a bicultural family on the U.S./Mexico border, learns she must play a role in a culture that prizes whiteness, patriarchy, and chauvinism. As an adult she oscillates between performed confidence and obedience. As a wife, she bristles against the expectations of emotional labor. As a mother, she attempts to direct her white male children away from the toxic power they are positioned to inherit, only to find how deeply she is also implicated in these systems. Tangled in a family history of depression, a society fixated on guns, a rocky relationship, and her own desire to ignore and deny the problems she must face, this is a speaker who is by turns defiant, defeated, self-implicating, and hopeful.

The Damage Done by Susana H. Case from the publisher.

The “damage done” in Susana H. Case’s remarkable poetry thriller set in late 1960s New York City is of two orders. On the surface, this is the story of Janey, a fashion model whose death under mysterious circumstances serves as an opportunity for a corrupt FBI agent in the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to frame Janey’s Black Panther lover for her death, making them both collateral damage in J. Edgar Hoover’s clandestine war on anyone he deemed un-American. But on another level, as Case instructs us, the greater damage done is to democracy itself, to trust and faith in government, an enduring legacy of suspicion and division that serves as a cautionary tale at a moment when those divisions and distrust are more enflamed than ever. That’s a tall order for a volume of poetry, but Case more than succeeds in this audacious, breathtaking collection.

Ashes to Justice by R.E.I.L. from the publisher.

Ashes to Justice is a poetic lightning bolt tracing the path of love, abuse, betrayal, and recovery toward self-love. In this debut collection DC-area spoken word performer and poet educator R.E.I.L. releases the demons of this world while holding onto love for her family of birth, and the family she’s found.

Written with a whisper and a hammer” – Kim B Miller, Poet Laureate Prince William County, Virginia

“The sorrow of abuse pulses under these poems. But so does the joy of double-dutch, a grandmother’s love, and the truth of rebirth” – Joseph Ross, author of Raising King, and Ache

R.E.I.L. started her poetry career at open mics in the D.C. area and at 16 competed in the Brave New Voices slam in New York City. A poetic performer, visual artist, and arts educator teaching in D.C. schools, R.E.I.L. seeks inspiration from past and present life experiences to help the lives of other unsung souls.

Ashes to Justice is published by Day Eight with support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Cover art for the book is (c) Luis Del Valle, used by permission of the artist.

What did you receive?

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Black Under by Ashanti Anderson

February 2, 2022 by

Source: Coriolis Publicity
Paperback, 30 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Black Under by Ashanti Anderson is a poetry collection that will knock you back. In the opening ode, Anderson illuminates what it means to be Black and how beautiful it is. She equates it with the dark comfort of the womb, she alludes to the segregation of blacks and whites by evoking images of piano keys, but ultimately, her ode praises blackness. There are no monsters under this bed.

Anderson uses several different poetic forms to celebrate blackness, including a resume format that highlights the horrifying violence perpetrated against people because of skin color and the monetizing of those deaths for the sake of art and media. It’s that double-edge sword of calling attention to the unfair and unjust violence against Blacks, while at the same time feeling exploited. American capitalism at the forefront.

 from "Slave Ship Haibun" (pg. 11)

But she thinks not of how we watched the birds circle overhead,
bomb beak-first into the ocean. Each in our own way, we 
began to imitate. A few of us induced feathers. 
I plucked a plume, made a quill.

One of the most powerful poems in this collection, “The Body Recalls,” crescendos on the 3/5ths compromise where slaves were considered 3/5ths of a person for population counts related to taxation and representation in the House. Anderson makes readers aware of how each violent death of a Black person compounds the historic wrongs of America.

"Acrostic for My Last Breaths" (pg. 15)

If I’m ever out of oxygen

Cut the comms. Switch the radio, play
A song by Whitney or Aretha, something
No sense can pause my throat from parting for.
’Gon throw my sorrows into this vast, black void
That don’t even have space to hold tune, or blues,

But I don’t sing to be heard. I do it to keep on.
Ring diaphragm and rattle lung like sickness, each
Eighth-note a reason to stay living. Can’t take
A rest, might hear the sensor’s whining,
That worried, heaving falsetto of siren.
How I hate the sound of dying. Rather riff
Even if everything in me stops screaming.

Black Under by Ashanti Anderson explores what it means to be Black in America and the world, but it also looks to acknowledge and tackle the inter-generational trauma of Blacks in a way that is a searing commentary on our society as well as a celebration of resilience.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Ashanti Anderson (she/her) is a Black Queer Disabled poet, screenwriter, and playwright. Her debut short poetry collection, Black Under, is the winner of the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition at Black Lawrence Press. Her poems have appeared in World Literature Today, POETRY magazine, and elsewhere in print and on the web. Learn more about Ashanti’s previous & latest shenanigans at ashanticreates.com

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya K. Grant

February 1, 2022 by

Source: Media Masters Publicity
Paperback, 32 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya K. Grant provides early readers with some background on our current vice president and her background. My daughter read this one on her own, but she was interested in how Kamala and her sister protested the rules at their apartment building as children and successfully helped change the rules, allowing kids to play soccer on the law.

We talked about how individuals can come together to make change when things seem unfair. She learned about the different jobs that lawyers can hold from district attorney to attorney general and senator, as well as vice president of the United States. She found it amusing that Harris used a portable ironing board as a desk.

The book includes some firsts for Harris, as well as some fun facts, and kids will learn new words dealing with government and democracy. There’s also a short quiz at the end to help kids see how much they learned while reading this short book. The photos are high quality, as expected and really round out the story.

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya K. Grant is another short, early reader book that can help kids learn more about our modern heroes and activists, among others who are making history today.

RATING: Quatrain

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #668

January 31, 2022 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Velvet, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

This is what we received:

National Geographic Readers: Stacey Abrams (Level 2) by Melissa H. Mwai from Media Masters Publicity for review.

Learn about the voting rights advocate and politician Stacey Abrams and her groundbreaking achievements in this appealing Level 2 reader. Young readers will find out about Abram’s childhood and her early career as a city attorney and as minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives. The reader also explores her run in Georgia as the first Black woman to be nominated by a major party for governor, and how losing that race inspired her to devote her life to making elections and the voting process more equitable for everyone.

The level 2 text provides accessible, yet wide-ranging information for independent readers. Explore Abrams’s life, achievements, and the challenges she faced along the way to leading the fight against voter suppression and becoming a champion for change.

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya Grant from Media Masters Publicity for review.

Explore one of the most powerful and highest-ranking female figures in American history with this biography of Vice President Kamala Harris in this Level 2 reader.

On January 20, 2021, Kamala Harris made history. That day, she became the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected as Vice President of the United States. Young readers will learn about Harris’s childhood, her early career, and her journey that led to winning the vice presidency. This early reader also explores how Harris devoted her life to helping others, from serving as the Attorney General of California, to being elected as a U.S. Senator, to working alongside President Joe Biden on the campaign trail and in the White House.

Speak Up, Speak Out!: The Extraordinary Life of Fighting Shirley Chisholm by Tonya Bolden from Media Masters Publicity for review.

Before there was Barack Obama, before there was Kamala Harris, there was Fighting Shirley Chisholm. A daughter of Barbadian immigrants, Chisholm developed her political chops in Brooklyn in the 1950s and went on to become the first Black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. This “pepper pot,” as she was known, was not afraid to speak up for what she thought was right. While fighting for a better life for her constituents in New York’s 12th Congressional District, Chisholm routinely fought against sexism and racism in her own life and defied the norms of the time. As the first Black woman in the House and the first Black woman to seek the presidential nomination from a major political party, Shirley Chisholm laid the groundwork for those who would come after her.

Extensively researched and reviewed by experts, this inspiring biography traces Chisholm’s journey from her childhood in a small flat in Brooklyn where she read books with her sisters to Brooklyn College where she got her first taste of politics. Readers will cheer Chisholm on to victory from the campaign trail to the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol, where she fought for fair wages, equal rights, and an end to the Vietnam War. And while the presidential campaign trail in 1972 did not end in victory, Shirley Chisholm shows us how you can change a country when you speak up and speak out.

Flowers Grow on Broken Walls by Farena Bajwa for review from Author Marketing Experts.

Flowers Grow on Broken Walls is a unique collection of poems and prose that talks about healing and finding yourself in a world that constantly tells you that’s who you shouldn’t be.

The poems/story goes over our everyday human emotions; from being heart broken and questioning our self-worth in a world of judgment and scrutinizing social media, to finding ourselves and appreciating those really important in our lives – especially our inner, true selves. It is story that is everyone’s story at one point or the other.

The collection displays a raw and honest portrayal of an artist who cannot help but create something beautiful in the midst of the ugliness she has been put through, and who continues to hope against all odds, as she lets go of what she has been told is important and finds herself in one truly is.

The story that starts with heart ache ends with healing, it starts with rejection from someone but ends with self-acceptance, which is the only way for true healing.

What did you receive?

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