Literature and Poetry Reviews, Home of the Virtual Poetry Circle
Thanks to all of you who entered to win Holly’s Inbox by Holly Denham. Out of 78 entrants, Randomizer.org was tasked with selecting one winner.
The number selected was #66 and the winner is:
Lisa of Books Lists Life
Congrats to Lisa; I’ve already sent your address to the publisher.
Still interested in some giveaways, check out my 2-year blogiversary giveaway, here, and the Secrets to Happiness giveaway, here.
In late March, I reviewed Deep Dish by Mary Kay Andrews; if you missed my review, check it out, here.
Virginia Stanley will be welcoming Mary Kay Andrews to her show Library Love Fest on BlogTalk Radio on June 16 at 3PM. Ms. Andrews is a lovely author and loves to participate in discussions about her writing and other topics. She will be on the show to discuss her latest book, The Fixer-Upper, which I am dying to read.
Check out her discussion on June 16 at 3PM, here, with Mary Kay Andrews. I guarantee it will be a hoot. Call in and ask questions or write in to the chat section to ask your questions and you could win one of 25 copies of The Fixer-Upper.
Don’t forget my current giveaways:
2-year Blogiversary
Secrets to Happiness
Welcome to a Hachette Group Early Birds Blog Tour for Sarah Dunn’s Secrets to Happiness.
“A lot of life, it seemed to Holly, was turning out to be just like that. You keep walking, and you keep breathing, and then one day you notice, again, the feel of the wind on your cheek.” (Page 275)
Secrets to Happiness by Sarah Dunn focuses on the life of Holly Frick and each of the people she effects with her decisions and how their decisions impact her life in a gigantic web. From Holly’s ex-boyfriend Spence Samuelson to Betsy Silverstein and her friends Amanda and Mark to her screenwriter/partner Leonard. Each of these characters is dissatisfied with their current lives and is seeking happiness and contentment in their lives.
“It was probably, primarily, mostly, the chemical hair straightening. Leonard had spent four hundred dollars to get his hair straightened with the new Brazilian hair-straightening chemical, and now it clung to his head like a wet washcloth and then spiked out at the ends down at the top of his neck, which was huge, due to the steroids he got from a pharmacist who ran an underground steroid ring out of his fourth-floor walk-up on Christopher Street.” (Page 25)
Dunn has a great talent for description and character development. Secrets to Happiness delves into the various situations, emotions, friends, careers, and other elements in people’s lives that they believe make them happy. Each of these characters experiences turns their preconceived notions upside down, leaving Holly, Spence, Betsy, and Amanda to make pivotal decisions.
“‘I don’t tell Betsy about my personal life.’
‘Good. You know what? Don’t tell anybody. Let’s just keep this our little secret,’ said Holly. ‘And now I even sound like a child molester.’
‘That’s straight out of the handbook.’
‘Page eleven,’ said Holly. ‘Right after the part where I lure you back into the back of my van with a box of kittens.'” (Page 21)
Overall, Secrets to Happiness reads well with a modicum of interruption from narratives that scope farther back into the lives of the characters. While some of these narratives, which mirror background checks for the characters, are well written, readers could find them distracting and unnecessary. Dunn is a talented women’s fiction writer with a flare for dramatic and unconventional characters, and her ability to dig beneath the surface of these professional New Yorkers is uncanny.
Also Reviewed by:
Everyday I Write the Book Blog
Hachette Group was kind enough to offer 3 copies of Secrets to Happiness by Sarah Dunn to 3 of Savvy Verse & Wit’s U.S. and/or Canadian readers; no P.O. Boxes.
1. Leave a comment on this post about what makes you happiest about your life.
2. Become a follower of the blog or if you follow, let me know.
3. Blog, tweet, or spread the word about the giveaway and leave me a link here.
Deadline is June 18, 2009, at 11:59 PM EST
Don’t forget my 2-Year Blogiversary Giveaway, go here for details.
I bet you’re wondering what those pictures are all about. You’ll just have to keep reading to find out.
Savvy Verse & Wit turns two years old on June 12, and the blog has gone through a number of changes since I began. Why am I making this announcement today? Well, it’s simply because I have two book tours scheduled for June 11 and 12.
Savvy Verse & Wit now has its own DOT COM address, the look has changed, and the content has grown. Thanks to all of you readers that have stuck with me over the last two years, and welcome to those new readers who have recently or not-so-recently discovered Savvy Verse & Wit.
Ok, the photos. These are just some of the prizes up for grabs.
The first is a Book Club Girl canvas bag, which I snagged at Book Expo America, which I have stuffed with some cute little writing helpers, some Garth Stein swag, and some surprise items.
Second is the Scrapbooking kit, which can go one of two ways. You can either provide me with .JPG images and I will create a scrapbook original for you or you can simply win the kit and make your own. I’ll leave that bit up to the winner.
A third prize is still in the works, and perhaps some smaller prizes.
Since the deadline for this giveaway is far off–July 11–I’ve decided to make it a rolling entry.
Each week, there will be a post with a quotation, and you will have to guess who said it.
You get one entry for each correct guess, plus entries for comments on this post about why you follow Savvy Verse & Wit, when you first started following (this can be an approximate date or number of months/years), and a link to one of your favorite posts from Savvy Verse & Wit.
So, here’s the first quote that you need to guess the speaker of:
“An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.”
Deadline for the giveaway is July 11, 2009, 11:59 PM EST
What you need to know:
1. Comment on this post with the answer to the quote.
2. Comment on this post about why you follow/read this blog.
3. Comment on this post about when you first started following this blog–an approximation.
4. Leave a link on this post to one of your favorite Savvy Verse & Wit posts.
5. Stay tuned for a new quote each week for another chance to enter.
Also, check out my Holly Denham Giveaway, which ends tonight.
Good Luck everyone!
Naida at The Bookworm must be tickled that her little award is continuing to make it around the blogosphere.
I recently received this one from Anna at Diary of an Eccentric, and I wanted to tell her THANKS! And, of course, to pass it on to some of you!
1. Natalie of Book, Line, and Sinker
2. Carrie at Books and Movies
3. Lisa, Julie, Jenn at Girls Just Reading
4. Rebecca at Just One More Page
5. Liviania at In Bed With Books
7. Jackie at Literary Escapism
8. Jill at The Magic Lasso
9. Violet Crush
10. Heather at Age 30+…A Lifetime of Books
11. Iliana at Bookgirl’s Nightstand
Also, given that I have two blog tours coming up at the end of this week, I wanted to let everyone know that my big 2-year blogiversary giveaway will be up tomorrow instead and run through the end of the month.
Check out this giveaway:
1 copy of Holly’s Inbox by Holly Denham, here; Deadline is June 10, 2009, 11:59 PM EST
I’d like to welcome Gail Graham, author of Sea Changes, to Savvy Verse & Wit. Today, she’s going to provide us with some insight on her writing and the struggles she most recently faced. Please give Gail a warm welcome.
When my husband died, I was devastated. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t even talk to anyone for more than a couple of minutes without bursting into tears. And of course, I couldn’t write.
Over time, things got better. I managed to go back to work. I could interact with my students and colleagues. I’d lost a lot of weight, and people kept telling me how good I looked. But I still couldn’t write.
It was as if part of me had died. And not just any old part of me, but the best and most important part of me. All my life, I’d thought of myself — and described myself — as a writer. But whoever heard of a writer who couldn’t write!
People said, Give yourself time. It’ll get better. But years passed, and it didn’t get better. I still couldn’t write.
But I dreamed, incredible, complicated, detailed dreams. Almost every night, my subconscious mind conjured up people I had never met and places I had never seen, all in vivid color and detail. Sometimes, the dreams would continue over several nights, picking up where they’d left off. My dream life was as colorful and exciting as my waking life was dull and drab. In my dreams, I felt alive.
So I started writing them down, every morning. They didn’t make much sense, written down. There was no story line, no plot. The characters continually changed, and so did the places. Still, it was writing. Maybe it would lead to something. Maybe it would lead me back to the person I used to be.
More years passed. My dream life was more real to me than my waking life. I often thought of Chuangzi, the Chinese philosopher who fell asleep beneath a tree and dreamed he was a butterfly. When he awoke he asked himself, Am I Chuangzi who dreamed I was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I’m Chuangzi? 
I felt that I was living in two worlds, simultaneously. One of them was real and the other was imaginary. I knew that. I wasn’t crazy. But the world I preferred was the imaginary one. And that was how Sarah Andrews, the protagonist of Sea Changes was born.
Sarah seemed very real. And it was easy to write about her, and to describe her walk to the beach for that final swim. Hooray! I was writing again! But where was this going? What would happen to Sarah as she swam out towards the horizon? I had absolutely no idea. And suddenly, there was Bantryd.
The mind is a wonderful thing. The imagination is a wonderful thing. And all of this has taught me that the world is a wonderful place, a place where truly, anything is possible.
Thanks, Gail, for sharing your experiences with us and for taking the time out of your busy schedule to stop by Savvy Verse & Wit. Please check out the book synopsis and excerpt below for Sea Changes.
About the book:
When Sarah’s husband dies suddenly, she is left with no anchor and no focus.
Grief is an ever-present companion and counseling a weekly chore with minimal results, but when Sarah decides to end her life her suicide attempt takes her to an underwater world where she finds comfort and friendship. Afterwards, back on the beach she wonders – Was it a dream? Was I hallucinating? Or am I going mad?
Her efforts to make sense of the experience lead to Sarah’s becoming a suspect in the alleged kidnapping of a young heiress. Now her worlds are colliding – and the people she trusts are backing away, not believing a word she says. She must decide what is real and what is not. Her life depends on it.
Excerpt from Sea Changes:
She doesn’t have to get up if she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t have to do anything. Propped against the pillows, she watches the changing patterns of light filter through the branches of the tree outside her window. She could lie here until Friday and nobody would know or care. But that would be giving up. You’re not supposed to give up. You’re supposed to keep trying, whether you feel like it or not. If you keep going through the motions, sooner or later, something will kick in.
So she gets up and dresses, even though she’s not going anywhere. She puts on clean underwear and clean, pressed clothes. Her appointment with Kahn isn’t until Friday, but that’s not the point. You can’t spend the day in your nightgown.
There’s nothing much in the newspaper. There rarely is. It’s Australia, only eighteen million people in the whole country. Sitting at the kitchen table with a second mug of coffee, Sarah tackles the crossword puzzle. It was years before she mastered Australian crossword puzzles, which contain fewer words than their American counterparts and are shaped differently, more like skeletons than grids. The spellings are different too.
She hasn’t eaten since yesterday and she ought to be hungry, but isn’t. French women don’t get fat because they don’t eat unless they’re hungry. Sarah looks in the refrigerator, but nothing tempts her. She needs to go shopping. Later, perhaps, when it’s not so hot. She wishes she had a ceiling fan, or better still, central air conditioning. Nobody in Sydney has air conditioning. They don’t think it’s necessary, not with the beach so close. Nobody has central heating, either. They say it doesn’t get cold enough, but it does.
Sarah picks up a novel from the library and tries to concentrate. It’s not a very good novel, although it’s supposed to be a bestseller. That doesn’t mean anything, these days. Everything’s a bestseller. The protagonist has left his wife, is having an affair, has just learned he’s got cancer. He’ll probably die at the end. Sarah thinks he deserves to die and dozes off on the couch. When she opens her eyes, damp and sticky with the perspiration of an afternoon nap, it’s already getting dark.
The telephone rings. Nobody calls her, except telemarketers and sometimes Kahn, when he needs to cancel a session. If it rings five times, the machine will answer it. Five, six, seven. Maybe she’s forgotten to turn the machine on.
About the Author:
Gail Graham’s previous novel, CROSSFIRE, won the Buxtehude Bulle, a prestigious German literary award. CROSSFIRE has been translated into German, French, Danish, Finnish and Swedish. Three of Gail’s other books were NY Times Book of the Year recommendations. Gail lived in Australia for 32 years, where she owned and operated a community newspaper and published several other books, including A COOL WIND BLOWING (a biography of Mao Zedong) STAYING ALIVE and A LONG SEASON IN HELL. She returned to the United States in 2002, and now lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Check out this giveaway:
1 copy of Holly’s Inbox by Holly Denham, here; Deadline is June 10, 2009, 11:59 PM EST
Welcome to another edition of Mailbox Monday, sponsored by The Printed Page.
Even after Book Expo America, there are new books entering the house. Check them out:
1. Gifts of War by Mackenzie Ford from Shelf Awareness
2. A Match for Mary Bennet by Eucharista Ward from Sourcebooks
3. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart from Borders for $1, and it’s hardcover.
4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins from Borders, full price almost, for the new book club’s monthly selection; Hubby and I are sharing this copy.
5. Best Intentions by Emily Listfield from Book Escape
What did you get in your mailbox?
Check out this giveaway:
1 copy of Holly’s Inbox by Holly Denham, here; Deadline is June 10, 2009, 11:59 PM EST
I haven’t read any more WWII books, since Reading by Lightning, but Anna and I have been posting reviews from the participants and some worthy news items.
If you are interested in the latest news item about the Invasion of Normandy, also known as D-Day, please head on over and comment. Here’s the link.
I also wanted to alert you to an upcoming 2-year Blogiversary here at Savvy Verse & Wit, and I am planning a big giveaway, so stay tuned. Look for the announcement on June 12.
Check out this giveaway:
1 copy of Holly’s Inbox by Holly Denham, here; Deadline is June 10, 2009, 11:59 PM EST
Welcome my mom’s (Pat) review of MAX by James Patterson; she was kind enough to read this one a month ago, and I’m just catching up on posting some of her reviews.
MAX, the fifth book in the series, features the bird kids–Gazzy, Angel, Fang, Nudge, Max and others–after they join forces with the coalition CSM to stop the “madness.” Off the Hawaii coast, ships, fish, and other creatures are being destroyed by something or someone. The bird kids always seem to be in danger, but they are keenly aware of the dangers they face.
Patterson’s young adult bird kid series really heats up in MAX. But will Max and her mother live through this ordeal? If you are eager for another page turner, this is the book for you. Action-packed up until the end, and you will want read it again just to see how the kids find their way out of trouble. Five stars, a must read.
Thanks, mom, for another review, and thanks to Hachette Group for sending this book along. Stay tuned for my review of MAX, which the hubby and I are listening to on audiobook.
Have a great weekend everyone; I’ll be offline spending time with the hubby and spring cleaning in June.
Check out this giveaway:
1 copy of Holly’s Inbox by Holly Denham, here; Deadline is June 10, 2009, 11:59 PM EST
Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for Reunion by Therese Fowler. There was some stiff competition, but out of 42 entrants, Randomizer.org selected #16:
The winner is Jo-Jo of Jo-Jo Loves to Read!!!
Congrats to you, Jo-Jo.
Check out my current giveaway:
1 copy of Holly’s Inbox by Holly Denham, here; Deadline is June 10, 2009, 11:59 PM EST
