Quantcast

Guest Post: Lari O’Dell, author of Mr. Darcy’s Phoenix

September 6, 2022 by

First, please let me apologize that this post was meant to be posted on Aug. 30, but due to some family emergencies and other issues, it didn’t get posted during the blog tour. I humbly apologize to Ms. O’Dell.

I want to welcome Ms. O’Dell to the blog today with her guest post about Mr. Darcy’s Phoenix. Please check out the book synopsis below.

Book Synopsis:

A phoenix brings them together. Will a curse keep them apart?

When the hauntingly beautiful song of a phoenix lures Elizabeth Bennet to the Netherfield gardens, she has a vision of an unknown gentleman. He whispers her name with such tenderness that she wonders if this man is her match. Unfortunately, her gift of prophecy has never been exactly reliable.

Mr. Darcy is a celebrated fire mage, the master of Pemberley, and the man from her vision. But he is not tender; he is haughty, proud, and high-handed. His insult of her during the Summer Solstice celebration makes her determined to dislike him in spite of her love for Dante, his phoenix familiar.

After Mr. Darcy is called away by his duties, Elizabeth’s magic runs wild, and it is only their reunion at Rosings that offers her any hope of controlling it. They are drawn together by their love of magical creatures and their affinity for fire. But Elizabeth soon has another vision about Mr. Darcy, one that may portend a grave danger to his life.

Can Darcy and Elizabeth overcome misunderstandings, curses, and even fate itself?

Please welcome Lari Ann O’Dell:

I’m excited to be back at Savvy Verse & Wit to talk about my new fantasy Pride & Prejudice variation, Mr. Darcy’s Phoenix.

The world of Mr. Darcy’s Phoenix is filled with a plethora of fay folk and magical creatures.

There are several magical creatures and fay folk that play an important part of the story. Of course there is Dante the phoenix, the titular character. But there is also a unicorn named Aurelia, several household elves, wood nymphs and water nymphs, a griffin, and many others.

In this variation, Pemberley is not only a grand estate in the north, but it also serves as the largest conservatory for magical creatures in England. Darcy was raised with magical creatures and fay folk, and has a deep appreciation for them that is not always shared by his peers. Part of what draws him to Elizabeth is her appreciation for magical creatures and her obvious bond with his companion Dante.

The phoenix is a symbol or rebirth, renewal, immortality, healing, and eternal fire. Darcy is a fire mage and so having a phoenix as a companion made perfect sense. Not all Darcy men have been fire mages, but Dante has been with the Darcy family since the time of William the Conqueror. Dante is reborn with the birth of each new master of Pemberley.

Dante serves as an extension of Darcy himself. He forges an early bond with Elizabeth, despite Darcy’s poor first impression and insult. Even Elizabeth acknowledges that a person bonded with such a magnificent creature cannot be all bad. Dante helps Elizabeth to see Darcy’s better attributes sooner than she normally does in Pride and Prejudice. He also serves as a healer, both physically and metaphorically, and a messenger. I have always loved Fawkes the phoenix from Harry Potter, but now Dante is my favorite fictional phoenix.

When selecting the other magical creatures I wanted to feature, there was some research involved. There are some creatures I mention just to flesh out the world and because I like them. But the others that served a greater function to the story, I wanted to use them in a way that is supported by lore.

For example, unicorns represent goodness and purity. In mythology, it was said that only people who were pure of heart can approach a unicorn. There is a scene in the book where Darcy helps deliver a unicorn foal, and Elizabeth names the baby. The unicorn later helps Elizabeth in a significant way. Darcy and Elizabeth are able to interact so closely with unicorns because despite their flaws, they are truly good people at heart.

As in the original novel, Elizabeth seeing Darcy at Pemberley gives her a new appreciation of his character. The griffin, which makes a small appearance in the second half of the book, is a symbol of strength and valor. It was also seen as a guardian and protector of secretly buried wealth or treasures. It was said to help ward off evil influences. It certainly plays an important role in the story.

The nymphs were fun to write because they were very much like human characters with a magical twist. There are four nymphs in the story, Nyxie, Nyla, Whitley, and Serafina. Fay folk famously do not lie. I liked having characters who were not afraid to tell Darcy and Elizabeth when they were being foolish. Darcy and Elizabeth did not always appreciate it, but the nymphs certainly helped them along their journey to finding their happy ending.

I hope you all enjoy reading about all of these magical creatures and more in Mr. Darcy’s Phoenix.

Thank you, Lari Ann, for stopping by the blog.

About the Author:

Lari Ann O’Dell first discovered her love of Pride & Prejudice when she was eighteen. After reading a Pride & Prejudice variation she found in a closing sale at a bookstore, she said, “This is what I want to do.” She published her first novel, Mr. Darcy’s Kiss, two years later.

Born and raised in Colorado, she attended the University of Colorado in Boulder and earned a bachelor’s degree in History and Creative Writing. After graduating college, she wrote and published her second novel, Mr. Darcy’s Ship. Her third novel, Mr. Darcy’s Clan, is her first supernatural variation, and she is working on two more fantasy variations. She is now back at school and pursuing a degree in Nursing. She adores her three beautiful nephews, Hudson, Dean, and Calvin. She enjoys reading, singing, and writes whenever she can.

Filed Under: guest post Tagged With: ,

Mailbox Monday #698

September 5, 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.

Here’s what I received:

2 a.m.with Keats by Eileen Cleary for review.

As I read Eileen Cleary’s 2 a.m. with Keats, I felt breathless, suspended in a place of red keys, plum stones, cats, willows, and sphinxes. It would minimize the reach of this brilliant collection to call it an elegy or a eulogy, or even a love story to Lucie Brock-Broido or John Keats – though it is all of those things. Here, in this place where “the elm says Grief and the oak, Grief,” the poems shine and scatter across the pages like “a phantom of stars.” Cleary engages the rhythms of another world, of “sweet music honeyed and unheard,” where “Lucie reaches forty years back. . . .”

Embracing the quirkiness of Brock-Broido’s imagery and the love of Keats’s line, Cleary creates a séance of astronomy, searching for the origins of human and poetic magic, where “looking for signs means I’ve / once been broken.” I will return to 2 a.m. with Keats again and again, to remember Lucie and Keats, to inhale “rose milk . . . mint.” – Jennifer Martelli, author of In the Year of Ferraro

Also A Poet by Ada Calhoun for review.

When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O’Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started forty years earlier.

As a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s, and her own.

The result is a groundbreaking and kaleidoscopic memoir that weaves compelling literary history with a moving, honest, and tender story of a complicated father-daughter bond. Also a Poet explores what happens when we want to do better than our parents, yet fear what that might cost us; when we seek their approval, yet mistrust it.

In reckoning with her unique heritage, as well as providing new insights into the life of one of our most important poets, Calhoun offers a brave and hopeful meditation on parents and children, artistic ambition, and the complexities of what we leave behind.

Red London by Alma Katsu from NetGalley.

After an explosive takedown of a well-placed mole within the CIA, agent Lyndsey Duncan has been tasked with keeping tabs on her newest Russian asset, deadly war criminal Dmitri Tarasenko. She arrives in London fully focused on the assignment at hand, until her MI6 counterpart, Davis Ranford, the very person responsible for ending her last mission overseas after they were caught in a whirlwind affair, personally calls for her.

After a suspicious attack on a powerful Russian oligarch’s property on Billionaires’ Row in the toniest neighborhood in London, Davis needs Lyndsey to cozy up to the billionaire’s aristocratic British wife, Emily Rotenberg. Lyndsey’s job is to obtain any and all information related to Emily’s husband, Mikhail Rotenberg, and his relationship with the new Russian president, whom CIA and MI6 believe is responsible for the sudden mysterious disappearance of his predecessor, the Hard Man. Fortunately for Lyndsey, there’s little to dissuade Emily from taking in a much-needed confidante. After all, misery needs company.

But before Lyndsey can cover much ground with her newfound friend, the CIA unveils a perturbing connection between Mikhail and Russia’s geopolitical past, one that could dangerously upend the world order as we know it. As the pressure to turn Emily becomes higher than ever, Lyndsey must walk a fine and ever-changing line to keep the oligarch’s fortune from falling into Russian hands and plunging the world into a new, disastrous geopolitical reality.

Red London is a nuanced, race-against-the-clock story that at times feels eerily set against today’s headlines, a testament to author Alma Katsu’s thirty-plus career in national security. It’s a rare spy novel written by an insider that feels as prescient as it is page-turning and utterly unforgettable.

What did you receive?

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

HAIR: From Moptops to Mohicans, Afros to Cornrows by Katja Spitzer

September 1, 2022 by

Source: Media Masters Publicity
Hardcover, 40 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

HAIR: From Moptops to Mohicans, Afros to Cornrows by Katja Spitzer is a look at hairstyle from as long ago as 300 years or more. In the opening pages, there are images that look like noodles, but they also could be clipped pieces of hair before you get to the title page. What’s clear from the start of the book is that humanity has been obsessed with self-expression through hair since the dawn of time.

I loved that the book started with information about why hair grows and what cells make up the color of our hair and why our hair grows gray as we age. From the tall hairstyles of the Rococo period to the Ancient Egyptians, readers will learn about hair and why certain styles became fashionable. The background about the Afro, however, focuses too much on why Blacks straightened their hair, which is important, but doesn’t really explain the hairstyle itself. Some sections are more detailed about how the style is created than this one.  One of the best parts of the book is that there’s a final page that kids can use to draw their own favorite hairstyle.

For a quick history lesson on hair styles, HAIR: From Moptops to Mohicans, Afros to Cornrows by Katja Spitzer can help young kids learn about the past, present, and future of hair, including beards and man-buns.

RATING: Tercet

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

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman

August 30, 2022 by

Source: Gift
Hardcover, 240 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman, which was the August read-a-long, is the first poetry collection by the youngest poet laureate to read at a presidential inauguration. Her poems read much like a spoken word poet would recite them. She plays a lot with poetic form, crafting lines into images of whales and masks, and placing poignant lines on the stripes of the American flag. Some of these image-focused poems work well, but others just seem to fall flat.

From "Cut" (pg.26-27)

Disease is physiological death,
Loneliness is a social one,
Where the old We collapses like a lung.
From "War: What, Is It Good? (pg. 118-124)

War, like a whale, is all consuming-
Everything fits into its mesh mouth.
Like a whale, a virus can wolf
Down the globe whole.
The bullet is a beast, as are we.
Our invisible battles
Are the hardest ones to win.

***

The first step in warfare & pandemics is the same:
Isolation, to rupture the channels of communication of
virus/violence."
Later in that poem on mask vs. no mask (pg. 144)

Why it's so perturbing for privileged groups to follow
restrictions of place & personhood.
Doing so means for once wearing the chains their power
has shackled on the rest of us.

Gorman tackles a lot of issues in this collection from slavery and racism to the COVID pandemic and its parallels with the 1918 Spanish flu. Water imagery and references to the slave ships travel throughout the collection, connecting the struggles together into the anchor that many still carry.

There is a lot of struggle and darkness in these poems, but she answers the call of how to move on with love, empathy, and connection. Gorman reminds us that there is hope for change, and that we can make those choices. We are not all that we carry with us.

From "School's Out" (pg. 17-8)

Their feet stomp at our life.
There is power in being robbed
& still choosing to dance.

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman is strongest when it is passionate and honest, when the poems don’t rely too heavily on physical images or erasure to create declarative poems. Her honesty shines brightest in her youthful passion and I am eager to see more from this poet.

RATING: Tercet

This was our August read-a-long selection for the 2022 Poetry Reading Challenge. You can find those discussions below:

About the Poet:

Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied Sociology. She has written for the New York Times and has three books forthcoming with Penguin Random House.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, she began writing at only a few years of age. Now her words have won her invitations to the Obama White House and to perform for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Al Gore, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and others. Amanda has performed multiple commissioned poems for CBS This Morning and she has spoken at events and venues across the country, including the Library of Congress and Lincoln Center. She has received a Genius Grant from OZY Media, as well as recognition from Scholastic Inc., YoungArts, the Glamour magazine College Women of the Year Awards, and the Webby Awards. She has written for the New York Times newsletter The Edit and penned the manifesto for Nike’s 2020 Black History Month campaign. In 2017, Amanda Gorman was appointed the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate by Urban Word – a program that supports Youth Poets Laureate in more than 60 cities, regions and states nationally. She is the recipient of the Poets & Writers Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, and is the youngest board member of 826 National, the largest youth writing network in the United States.

Filed Under: challenges, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #697

August 29, 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.

Here’s what I received:

Love in Bloom by Jenny Proctor, an Amazon Kindle freebie.

Hating Cameron Hunter shouldn’t be this easy.

I’m basically a golden retriever puppy. I love everyone and want everyone to love me.

But Cameron is the singular exception to my “love everyone” rule, and the hatred goes both ways.

First of all, he’s one of THOSE guys. The kind that looks like he belongs on the cover of Yacht Club Weekly. Second of all, he’s way too good at his job. The man is a walking Wikipedia. His walking tours of historic downtown Charleston stay booked weeks in advance.

Did I mention I run tours along the same route?

When we’re both up for a magazine feature that could kick our respective careers to the next level, our rivalry turns into a heated competition.

Then we unexpectedly kiss (it’s a looooong story), and things get really complicated. Now my blood is boiling over Cameron for an entirely different reason.

Only one of us can win. Can I trust a man who used to be my enemy, or is everything—even our relationship—just a part of his plan to take me down?

A Beginner’s Guide to Being Human by Matt Forrest Esenwine, illustrated by Andre Ceolin, for review in October from Media Masters Publicity.

Being a human is a lot of work! Thankfully, humans experience many of the same feelings, situations, and challenges, so we don’t have to figure it all out on our own–we can help each other navigate the ups and downs. Full of humor and heart, this engaging guide inspires kids to be humans who are kind, empathetic, and thoughtful. No matter what our day brings, we can choose to practice self-control, compassion, and forgiveness. Don’t worry, young human, it’s okay to make some mistakes along the way–just remember that it’s love that keeps us all afloat at the end of the day.

My Dog, Hen by David Mackintosh for review in October from Media Masters Publicity.

“Why should we get a brand-new dog when Hen is as good as new to us?” asks the young boy at the center of this story. The adorable mixed-breed pup is brought home in a cardboard box, given toys, and some food–and then proceeds to enthusiastically eat up his loving home. When nothing can be done (and all the pocket money has been spent on new toys) the boy’s wise and thrifty grandmother finds a helpful solution. Readers of all ages will laugh at Hen’s boundless energy and parents especially will identify with the challenges of training a headstrong dog. Any family that has ever adopted a rescue pet will appreciate this story’s gentle lesson about finding value in our less-than-perfect belongings and loved ones.

I Am Coco: The Life of Coco Chanel by Isabel Pin for review in September from Media Masters Publicity.

Young Gabrielle came from a poor family, was orphaned at age 12, and learned to sew in a convent school. She worked as a seamstress and sang in cabarets, where she was given the nickname Coco.

This story—and the remarkable career that followed—is exuberantly told in Isabel Pin’s simple yet detailed illustrations. Young readers will learn about Coco’s beginnings as a hat designer, and how her earliest creations presaged the concept of sportswear.

They’ll learn about her iconic designs— the little black dress, the impeccable suit, the squared-off perfume bottle, and the acclaimed logo. And they will learn how a freethinking young artist who freed women from the corsets and extravagant ornamentations of the early 20th century grew into a ferociously ambitious designer who staged her own comeback at the age of 70.

Whether they are interested in the history of fashion, or looking for encouragement to pursue their own dreams, young readers will find this entertaining biography both fascinating and inspiring.

Hair: From Moptops to Mohicans, Afros, and Cornrows by Katja Spitzer for review in September from Media Masters Publicity.

During the Rococo period, wealthy women tucked shells, necklaces, fruit, and flowers into their hair, which was styled into towers that reached as high as three feet over their heads.

In 1970s London, young, disfranchised “punks” made themselves feel powerful by drawing on the 2,000-year-old Native American practice of shaving their heads except for a narrow strip from forehead to neck. These are just a couple of many fascinating moments of hair history whimsically illustrated in this book.

Katja Spitzer’s colorful illustrations are presented in double-page spreads that offer an engaging description of a hair trend or style and its cultural and historic significance. Readers will learn why hair braiders in West Africa can spend an entire day working on one client; and how Black Americans signaled their opposition to racist laws and practices by not styling their naturally frizzy hair.

Filled with important history and giggle-inducing facts, this wide-ranging book crosses cultures and oceans to offer an important lesson about self- expression that will encourage readers of all ages to let down their hair, and to let others do the same.

The Power of Architecture by Annette Roeder, illustrated by Pamela Baron for review in September from Media Masters Publicity.

From private residences to affordable housing, stadiums to factories, museums to libraries—this book takes young readers across continents to learn how architecture is improving the world one building at a time.

Although popular culture and classrooms are filled with references to classic and iconic buildings such as the Parthenon, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and the Great Pyramids, there are equally valuable lessons to be learned from modern architecture, and especially from buildings situated in the Global South and among underrepresented populations.

This beautifully illustrated book investigates how contemporary architects from a variety of cultures are addressing issues of climate change, income inequality, and limited resources by designing buildings that are as innovative as they are beautiful. Each building is presented in a double-page spread featuring Pamela Baron’s exquisitely detailed illustrations that highlight the design, natural surroundings, and the people who live, work, or play there.

Annette Roeder’s pitch-perfect text outlines the structure’s unique contribution to the field of architecture, and invites readers to wonder aloud why the building works and to find out more about it. A perfect stepping stone for designers in the making, this book also teaches kids how architecture can help the people it shelters and the planet on which it is built.

What did you receive?

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

Final Week: Amanda Gorman’s Call Us What We Carry Read-a-Long

August 26, 2022 by

For this last week, we read the final sections of the collection:Fury & Faith and Resolution.

Here are a few questions to get us started:

  1. In Fury & Faith, Gorman again takes the poetic form and upends it, placing it onto the stripes of the American flag. What are your thoughts on this use of poetic lines?
  2. Explore your reactions to the poems in this first of the last two sections. What are some of the things that stuck out to you?
  3. In the Resolution section, what do you think her main point is about resolution?

I’ll be monitoring the comments and replying throughout the weekend. Can’t wait to see what everyone thinks.

Check out the previous discussions below:

Thank you to everyone who participated or just read along with us. I hope you enjoyed the book, and I’d love to hear what you thought overall.

Filed Under: challenges, Poetry Reading Challenge Tagged With: , ,

All the Rivers Flow into the Sea and Other Stories by Khanh Ha

August 23, 2022 by

Source: the author
Paperback, 210 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

All the Rivers Flow into the Sea and Other Stories by Khanh Ha, winner of the EastOver Prize for Fiction, are stories in which cultures seem insurmountable until there’s an undercurrent of emotion the breaks through those external barriers. Underneath these stories is the roiling tide, pushing and pulling these characters toward and away from one another.

“He makes me homesick. I realize I’m in a foreign country. I can speak its language, live its habits, think its thoughts, but I’ll never be part of it.” (pg. 178, “The Children of Icarus”)

In the opening story, “The Woman-Child,” there’s a tension between a young Vietnamese man, who returns to Vietnam as part of his research of how shrimp farmers are affecting the waterway, and a young woman who cooks for her fisherman father and feels like the woman at the inn is like a mother. He grew up in America and looks at her through an American lens, but she is a young, independent woman who wants to show no weakness in front of him. These moments of passionate tension and the strength of independence enable the tension to break without the characters themselves breaking under the weight.

“I stared at him. He could have stabbed me and still not have hurt me as much as the tone of his voice did.” (pg. 62, “The Dream Catcher”)

Ha’s characters are complex and struggling against cultural expectation and tempting passions. They are looking for their path, but often find they are pulled into a direction they never expected. There is a tumbling of light and dark into a gray sea that flows between each character who is being tossed on their adrift boat. Ha reminds us that tragedy touched everyone, but it is not always apparent on the surface.

All the Rivers Flow into the Sea and Other Stories by Khanh Ha is another collection that will capture your imagination. From the magical market to the tragedy of lost lives, Ha’s stories are fairy tales in which characters face tragedy head on and seek solace in life and the blessings they have. I didn’t want to reach the end of this collection.

RATING: Cinquain

***Also check out Ha’s poem, a Book Signing Horror Story.

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

Multi award winning author Khanh Ha is the author of Flesh, The Demon Who Peddled Longing, and Mrs. Rossi’s Dream. He is a seven-time Pushcart nominee, finalist for the Mary McCarthy Prize, Many Voices Project, Prairie Schooner Book Prize, and The University of New Orleans Press Lab Prize. He is the recipient of the Sand Hills Prize for Best Fiction, the Robert Watson Literary Prize in Fiction, The Orison Anthology Award for Fiction, The James Knudsen Prize for Fiction, The C&R Press Fiction Prize, and The EastOver Fiction Prize.

Mrs. Rossi’s Dream was named Best New Book by Booklist and a 2019 Foreword Reviews INDIES Silver Winner and Bronze Winner. All the Rivers Flow into the Sea & Other Stories has already won the EastOver Fiction Prize. Visit him on Facebook and Twitter.

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY HERE.

Filed Under: fiction, giveaway, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews, short stories Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #696

August 22, 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.

Here’s what I received:

Falling for Your Fake Fiancé by Emma St. Clair, a Kindle freebie.

What happens when the man I love to hate becomes the man I must pretend to love?

I can’t seem to escape Thayden Walker and his infuriating charm.

Even his mother and his Great Dane seem bent on playing matchmaker. But I’m totally immune.

Until I’m presented with an offer that puts my ability to withstand him to the test. If I marry Thayden, all my student debt goes poof, and he’ll take over the family firm.

There’s so much more at stake than money or a job, especially when I start to see the man beneath the mask.

Playing house with Thayden is the most dangerous game of all.

And we’re both set up to lose more than we could ever win. Unless we’ve been on the same side all along …

The Prince I Love to Hate by Iris Morland, Kindle freebie.

This prince?
He’s anything but charming.

I’ve never been the girl who’s dreamt of a prince rescuing me from a fire-breathing dragon before whisking me away to his castle.

So when I fly all the way to Ireland to find my long-lost dad, I have no intention of playing the damsel in distress to some dude.

But the night I encounter—and accidentally wallop upside the head—Prince Olivier of Salasia, my plans are completely upended.

This prince is the opposite of charming, though. After thirty seconds in his presence, I want to feed him to a dragon.

But fate is a fickle b*tch. Before I know it, I agree to team up with Olivier in the search for my dad.

As I travel across Europe with this actual honest-to-god prince, I wonder, what’s the worst that could happen?

It’s not like I’ll be stupid enough to fall in love with Prince Charming.

What did you receive?

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

Week Three: Amanda Gorman’s Call Us What We Carry Read-a-Long

August 19, 2022 by

For this 3rd week, we read the Atonement section.

Here are a few questions to get us started:

1. What was your favorite poem in this section?

2. Erasure poems modify current text to create something new or highlight a particular theme. What impact does this form have on these poems?

3. Gorman offers a great deal of background to these found poems in footnotes and elsewhere, how did or did it not affect your reading of the poems?

I’ll be monitoring the comments and replying throughout the weekend. Can’t wait to see what everyone thinks.

Filed Under: challenges, Poetry Reading Challenge Tagged With: , ,

Guest Post: Book Signing Horror Story by Khanh Ha

August 18, 2022 by

Thank you for joining us today’s guest post from Khanh Ha. I’ll have a review of his newest short story collection next week. Also stay tuned for how to enter the giveaway.

About the collection:

From Vietnam to America, this story collection, jewel-like, evocative and layered, brings to the readers a unique sense of love, passions and the tragedy of rape, all together contrasting a darker theme of perils. The titular story captures a simple love story that transcends cultural barriers. The opening story “A Woman-Child” brings the shy eroticism of adolescence set against a backdrop of the seaside with its ever present ecological beauty. A youthful love affair between an older American man and a much younger Vietnamese girl has its poignant brevity in “All the Pretty Little Horses.” In “The Yin-Yang Market” magical realism and the beauty of innocence abounds in deep dark places, teeming with life and danger. “A Mute Girl’s Yarn” tells a magical coming-of-age story like sketches in a child’s fairy book.

Bringing together the damned, the unfit, the brave who succumb by their own doing to the call of fate, their desire to survive never dying, it is a great journey to inhabit this world where redemption of human goodness arises out of violence and beauty to become part of its essential mercy.

As readers, we understand how much we love authors and want to get our books signed at events when we can, but today, Khanh Ha, author of All the Rivers Flow into the Sea & Other Stories, is going to share with us what it is like to be on the other side of that equation. What’s it like for an author at a book signing?

Please give Khanh Ha a warm welcome for his guest post in the form of a poem:

The Late Night People

I met a woman
during one of my book signings
She came to the table where I sat with
two stacks of hardcover copies
She picked up one copy and said,
What is it about?
I’m never good at summarizing my work
in a nutshell
for something that had taken me
two, three years to write
Well, I said, it’s on the jacket flap
where she could read what the copywriter
had done
as part of the cosmetic surgery
so the work looks more like a movie actress
than a whore
The woman nodded, but
didn’t read a word of it
where I hoped she might have caught
the advance praises
full of superlatives
that sometimes you thought they must’ve been
copied and pasted in
from another work
But she just wanted to talk
A soft-spoken woman
straw-yellow hair
no makeup
like she’d just got out of bed and
wandered into this place
full of books
like Alice in Wonderland
We talked about pets
and, in the name of God,
she owed at least a dozen cats
some of them neutered
for overpopulation purpose
and pet fish
whose names I forgot
expensive though
She said one of them cost a hundred dollars
And I learned that she worked part time
somewhere in a graphics shop
It was a quiet evening
with no more than three interested readers
who dropped by at my table
but none bought any copy
only she did
without any idea of what the book
was about
When I left she had gone to an in-store coffee shop
sitting on a high stool with a cup of coffee
reading a day-old newspaper
I had to run an errand that evening after
the book signing and when I was done
it was half past midnight
I was driving down a cross-street
two blocks from the bookstore where
earlier I had my book signing
Stopping at the intersection on a red light
I looked over at a donut shop
on a corner
well lit, near empty
I saw the woman who had bought a copy
of my book
sitting by herself
close to the glass
a Styrofoam cup of coffee
in front of her
She wasn’t reading anything
just sitting and staring ahead
I wondered
where my book was
For certain it wouldn’t have fit in her purse
unless she had returned it after I left
for a full refund.

Thank you, Khanh Ha, for sharing this horror story with us.

To Enter the Giveaway, Click Here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Filed Under: giveaway, guest post Tagged With: , ,