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The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith

March 5, 2014 by

Source: Random House and TLC Book Tours
Hardcover, 256 pages
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The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith is a fresh short-story collection that spans the Vietnamese culture, myths, and the immigrant experience, straddling reality and the magical.  The Vietnam War hovers in the background of the characters’ lives as the mothers struggle to garner U.S. visas for themselves and their children born of American soldiers in “Guests” or in “Boat Story,” where a grandson asks his grandmother to explain her escape from Vietnam during the war.  Kupersmith’s style is clear and engaging, and the myths and magical moments are told in a storytelling style that is reminiscent of the oral traditions in Vietnamese culture.

“Whatever spirit had reanimated the corpse must have been a feeble one, for the body moved clumsily, legs stiff but head dangling loose as it struggled to keep its balance on the angry waves.  Grandpa sank down to his knees next to me, and we peered over the gunwale in helpless horror as the body tottered closer and closer.” (Page 8 ARC)

From ghosts in the Frangipani Hotel to the spirits in the woods, Kupersmith weaves in magic and myth seamlessly with reality. Her characters are oddities and not; they are rational but also open-minded about the unseen.  From the twin girls who border on feral to the young man who finds a ghost in the hotel, her characters are both real and unreal — they have a mystical quality.  The prose is witty, with a few moments that will leave readers chuckling.  At other times, the stories tackle serious issues like immigration and the soldiers who leave women behind with babies when the war is over, though with a sense of irony that never feels misplaced.

She can lull readers into a sense of complacency before her prose unsettles their world, and the mark of a great storyteller is one that can shift from male and female points of view with ease and who can create stories that will stay with readers long after they’ve been read.  The stories in The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith shift in setting and time, but the roots do not change, merely grow and curl as the tales unfold.

***U.S. residents can enter to win 1 copy of Violet Kupersmith’s The Frangipani Hotel by leaving a comment by March 10, 2014, 11:59 PM EST.***

About the Author:

Violet Kupersmith was born in rural Pennsylvania in 1989 and grew up outside of Philadelphia. Her father is American and her mother is a former boat refugee from Vietnam. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College she received a yearlong Fulbright Fellowship to teach and research in the Mekong Delta. She is currently at work on her first novel.

7th book (Vietnam War) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

6th book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

 

10th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, ARC, challenges, fiction, giveaway, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2014, reviews, short stories, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,

Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers

March 4, 2014 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 282 pages
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Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers is for readers age 12 and up given the subject matter, though there is less gruesome violence in this book than in other war books.  Robin “Birdy” Perry is a new recruit to the Civilian Affairs Battalion from Harlem who finds himself confused as to who the enemy is in Operation Iraqi Freedom.  His division’s mission is to secure and stabilize the country, providing medical attention and supplies whenever they can.  The confusion begins when civilians begin shooting at them and planting IEDs that blow up their convoys and other Iraqis in the streets.

“I looked to where she was nodding and saw the sun on the horizon and above it a thin red line that stretched endlessly in the distance.  There was also sand, rising like a shadow with shifting shades of dark brown and orange, coming toward us.  Cameras were brought out and guys stepped away from the trucks to get clear pictures.” (page 45)

Birdy’s got a crush on Marla, and he’s fast friends with Jonesy, who wants to own a Blues club when he gets out of the military.  Told in first person point of view, readers are limited to what they know about the war until Birdy becomes aware.  Unlike hand-to-hand combat or even WWI and WWII, the war in Iraq is more impersonal, as the enemy is often obscured by the lack of knowledge Americans had about the factions in the country or the bombs they detonate without being in close proximity.

Myers’ characters are a bit stereotyped in this novel, with the macho tough girl, Marla, and the laid back Jonesy.  And there are moments when Birdy’s reading the newspapers to get information about the war, which seems incongruous with the availability of the Internet and television in the Green Zone, where he spends most of his time.  Much of the story centers on Birdy’s fears about being in combat and worrying whether he’s good enough to be a soldier.  Once he becomes a little more comfortable in his skin, he worries about whether he’s doing a good job or accomplishing the mission — but then the team is ambushed or bombed and the fear becomes real.

Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers is a good introduction for young readers to the realities of war without being overly gruesome.  Myers examines the camaraderie between soldiers, the mixed up feelings that war stirs up, and confusion of war in the modern world.

About the Author:

Walter Dean Myers is an African-American writer of children’s books best known for young adult literature. He has written over fifty books including picture books and nonfiction.

6th book (Gulf Wars — Operation Iraqi Freedom) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

 

5th book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, challenges, children's fiction, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2014, reviews, Scholastic Tagged With: ,

Ripper by Isabel Allende

February 27, 2014 by


Source: Harper and TLC Book Tours
Hardcover, 496 pages
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Young Amanda Jackson is the game master for an online game, Ripper, in which participants — including her grandfather — examine evidence of heinous crimes and try to solve them. Up until recently, the gamers had focused on Jack the Ripper and other past cases, but when a rash of murders with unusual elements surface after a bloody premonition by local psychic Celeste Roko, the members set their sights on solving the new crimes. Ripper by Isabel Allende, translated by Oliver Bock and Frank Wynne, psychologically gets under the skin of the reader as they meet with the Ripper members and become part of the characters’ lives — Indiana, a homeopathic healer and Amanda’s mother; Ryan Miller, an ex-Navy SEAL and security specialist; Pedro Alarcón, Miller’s business partner and former guerrilla fighter from Uruguay; Alan Keller, a socialite man quickly running out of prestige and pennies; and more.

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

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

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

About the Author:

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

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

House of Glass by Sophie Littlefield

February 26, 2014 by

Source: Kaye Publicity
Paperback; 304 pages
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House of Glass by Sophie Littlefield is a heartbreaking tale of family secrets and how a family pulls together even when their bonds are frayed and challenged.  Jen Glass has the perfect life — a husband and two kids in a big house and a good career — but that life is shattered one evening when her house is invaded by strangers with guns.  Jen has a niggling suspicion that her husband has been keeping things from her, and her relationship with her daughter Livvy has been rocky — as most relationships between teens and parents are, but her son has been progressing in therapy for his selective mutism.  When she and her sister, Tanya, take off to make funeral arrangements for their estranged and low-life father, Sid, events are set in motion that cannot be undone.

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

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

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

About the Author:

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

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

Still, At Your Door by Emma Eden Ramos

February 25, 2014 by

Source: Emma Eden Ramos, the author
Paperback, 135 pages
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Still, At Your Door: A Fictional Memoir by Emma Eden Ramos is a powerhouse of emotion from the moment you begin. Sabrina Gibbons’ story is upended from the moment her mother drags them out of their abusive home in Butler, Penn, and drops them off with their grandparents in the Big Apple. Sabrina Gibbons’ past is just behind the scenes waiting to sweep you away as ‘Bri’ opens her journal, her memories, and her heart. She’s beginning a journey that’s much different from the one she’s been on with her mother, a journey full of promise and healing.

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

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

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

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

Check out the book trailer:

EmmaEdenRamos
About the Author:

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

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

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

February 20, 2014 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 240 pages
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Ten Thousand Sorrows: The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan by Elizabeth Kim is a memoir from a young Korean War orphan who never knew her father, was shunned as a non-person in Korea, and was subject to further psychological and physical abuse after her adoption.  This woman suffered greatly and mostly in silence for many years before and after her adoption by American, Christian fundamentalists.  The differences between her lush green Korean homeland and her new American desert home reflect the stark demarcations between her old life and being saved.

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author:

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

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

 

 

9th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

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

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

February 19, 2014 by

Source: Quirk Books
Hardcover, 174 pages
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William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher is another entertaining mix of classics and modern pop culture, combining the iambic pentameter and language of Shakespeare with the modern pomp of science fiction movies by George Lucas.  Doescher uses the plot and characters of the original Star Wars movie with an inventive and lyrical play format from Shakespeare.  He combines his knowledge of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and other plays with the pop culture of space travel.

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

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

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

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

About the Author:

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

8th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

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

Still Love in Strange Places by Beth Kephart

February 18, 2014 by

Source: Gift from LibraryThing SantaThing
Paperback, 240 pages
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Still Love in Strange Places by Beth Kephart is part travel, cultural immersion, and marital memoir.  El Salvador, the country of her husband’s birth, is seismologically and politically volatile, much like a marriage can be as we seek similarities and rarely understand the differences between us when we first begin a life together.  Kephart speaks of her husband’s country as someone who has never traveled to Central America before and only knows about the country from the horrific political turmoil and devastating earthquakes she has seen on the news.  She begins the novel very much on the outside of her husband’s life before he went to the United States for college and married her, living a suburban, quiet, American life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author:

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

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

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

A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith

February 11, 2014 by

Source: TLC Book Tours and Random House
Hardcover, 352 pages
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A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith is set in the 1930s when the United States was sending the mothers of soldiers overseas to France to the cemeteries where their children had been buried after WWI.  Smith bases her novel on the diary of Colonel Thomas Hammond, who began his career in the military with one of the pilgrimages of the Gold Star Mothers, and he appears as a young principled officer seeking to live up to his family’s illustrious military history.  As these mothers make their journey across the Atlantic to pay respect to their lost sons, Hammond is unaware how much the journey will affect him and these women.  Smith builds the story from a small island town in Maine where Cora Blake struggles alongside her neighbors to make ends meet as the United States wallows in Depression to the deepest emotional hum a human being can experience at a foreign graveside in a country that is still rebuilding after war.

“He was in grave number 72, identified by his dog tags, which were apparently nailed to a stake.  The second card asked that she state her relationship to the deceased and answer yes or no to the question: ‘Do you desire that the remains be brought to the United States?'” (page 15 ARC)

Cora Blake is a young widow, who also has lost her son to a war in Europe, but she’s just beginning to breathe and learn that there could be happiness around the corner with Linwood Moody, a recently widowed soil scientist.  Mrs. McConnell is an Irish-American who knows the struggle of working for the wealthier classes, while Minnie is a Russian-Jewish immigrant who has seen discrimination first hand.  Mrs. Russell is a woman who has been struggling with mental breakdowns for much of her married life, but is determined to see where her son died.  Just as determined as Mrs. Russell, railroad-heir Mrs. Olsen is seeking some form of closure from this trip.  Smith shines in her characterization of these mothers, showing how they are bonded over grief, but also that class distinction and experience can still separate them.  It’s a novel about the struggles for equality that still threatened to separate every American — immigrant or not — but how the great tragedy of war made no such distinctions when taking their sons.

“Cora’s world had expanded so rapidly, but not from the vista.  She remembered what Selma told her in the women’s waiting room in Boston.  ‘You got a lot to learn.’” (page 89)

Smith’s research into the time period, the Gold Star Mother’s tours, and the war itself — including the artillery and tactics used — shines through in the story, the plot, the characters, and the emotional roller coaster these women find themselves on.  Once in France, these women are swept along with military precision, but even the military is not prepared for the will of a mother’s love and her defiance against being told what will placate them the easiest.  They are here for the full experience, they want the truth of their sons’ sacrifices and will accept nothing less.  Along the way, they are treated to the best France has to offer, the eccentricities of Paris artists, the bigotry of Europeans who see Americans as arrogant, and the mysterious ways in which injured soldiers and American reporters, like Griffin Reed, cope.

A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith is stunning without being overwrought with emotion, weaving the lives of these women and their children into reader’s minds and souls.  In reflective prose, Smith deftly handles the grief of these women, the tension between grief and duty, and the peace that comes from knowing their loved ones are at rest.  From the cutting edge of facial reconstruction to the remnants of war that could still be found in the weeds of Verdun, Smith has crafted a novel that breathes life into history, ensuring that we never forget the past.

To win a copy of this book, you must be a U.S. resident, age 18 and over.  Leave a comment below by Feb. 14, 2014, at 11:59PM EST.  

4th book (WWI) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

 

7th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

 

 

 

4th book for 2014 European Reading Challenge; this is set in France.

 

 

 

4th book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: 2014 European Reading Challenge, 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, ARC, challenges, giveaway, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2014, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,

Big Girl Panties by Stephanie Evanovich

February 6, 2014 by

Source: TLC Book Tours and William Morrow
Paperback, 368 pages
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Big Girl Panties by Stephanie Evanovich pushes the envelope from the perfectly sculpted Logan Montgomery — personal trainer to the sports elite and their friends who is so worried about his image he never gets too close — to Holly Brennan, an overweight woman who is literally weighed down by her grief and troubled self-esteem.  Mix in Amanda and Chase, a power couple in baseball with a kinky side, plus a dozen or so of Logan’s super model exes, Evanovich has set the stage for an outrageous time once a chance meeting occurs.

“The image on the screen was an amorphous blob.  Flesh stacked upon more flesh oozing all over the couch.  The neon yellow and green from the top of the Funyuns bag between her legs was reflected with unsettling clarity.  She squeezed her thighs together tightly and heard the crunching sound of the Funyuns being pulverized.  Holly leaned her head back on the couch and sighed.”  (page 31)

Holly takes charge of an initially unwelcome opportunity to train with Logan at his private gym, and while she wasn’t prepared for the harsh routines he puts her body through she does little complaining.  True to her strength, she plows through the latest challenge, having learned early on that life is not anywhere close to easy.  Even though his image is illustrious and he is self-absorbed, she falls into a banter that is relaxed and even fun.  They fall into a friendship that leads to new gym-related terms, like swamp ass and Balzac, but it soon becomes apparent to Amanda and Chase that their relationship is deeper than that.

“Logan shot her a look that spoke of extreme tolerance mixed with fatherly reproach.  ‘Telling me I set the incline of a treadmill on Mount Kilimanjaro is not talking.  Asking me if I can see the baby’s head yet when you’re doing abdominal crunches is not meaningful conversation.'” (page 79)

Big Girl Panties by Stephanie Evanovich is laugh-out-loud funny, except for one early sex scene that may be a bit too graphic and too early on.  Holly Brennan is a strong woman who for a time loses herself in her new body and her new romance, but once she uncovers some dirty secrets, she has a choice to make.  Logan, on the other hand, is so concerned with maintaining his image, he grows even more uncomfortable with his romance and how it upsets every preconceived notion he held about himself and his relationships with women.  Body image plays a large role in this novel, but Evanovich handles the theme with delicacy and wit.

***Another great find in the book is the list of when you need to put on your own big girl panties.***

About the Author:

Stephanie Evanovich is a full-fledged Jersey girl who attended New York Conservatory for the Dramatic Arts, performed with several improvisational troupes, and acted in a few small-budget movies, all in preparation for the greatest job she ever had: raising her two sons. Now a full-time writer, she’s an avid sports fan who holds a black belt in tae kwon do. Connect with Stephanie on Facebook.

6th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, chicklit, fiction, Harper Collins, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: , ,

Nest. Flight. Sky.: On Love and Loss, One Wing at a Time by Beth Kephart

February 5, 2014 by

Source: Purchased for Kindle
eBook, about 34 pages
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Nest. Flight. Sky.: On Love and Loss, One Wing at a Time by Beth Kephart illustrates how the death of the person we’re closest to — oftentimes our mother — sends us out into the world, looking for answers or at least some hope.  Letting go is never about forgetting, while our loved ones may not physically be present any more and all we have is memory — a tricky thing indeed — we have the ability to seek out meaning and hope in the miracles around us.  Anyone who has read Kephart’s books before knows that she loves birds and what they can mean and represent in all their incarnations, but this obsession with birds clearly began with the loss of her mother.

“I work in a square room, watch the world (a garden like an archipelago, a museum of flowering trees) through two wide windows.  I work early in the day, a bare bulb turned on, and I work alone.  But in the months after my mother passed away, much too early, the finches came.  They were still wearing their winter coats.  They favored the crack of dawn.  They held themselves up with the acrobatics of their wings, touched their beaks to my wide windows, and hammered.”

Kephart ties together the memories of her mother’s accident and misdiagnosed and re-diagnosed illness — without naming it because it is unnecessary to do so — with the passionate love of birds held by Genevieve Estelle Jones and Katrina van Grouw.  Like these early scientists, Kephart is exploring the enigma of birds — not so much how they continue to fly and what their eggs and nests look like — but how those former dinosaurs continue to capture the imagination and offer solace to those not too busy to pause.

Readers could imagine glorious photos or illustrations of birds sweeping across the pages, along with Kephart’s words as she remembers the best parts of her mother and the best parts of herself.  Nest. Flight. Sky.: On Love and Loss, One Wing at a Time by Beth Kephart strives to give all those who grieve the hope that there is peace, a peace that we can live with and thrive with, as long as we remember to breathe and be alive.

***This ebook memoir was published by the new venture SheBooks, which published short ebooks for women, by women.  Check out what Beth Kephart had to say.

About the Author:

Beth Kephart is the author of 10 books, including the National Book Award finalist A Slant of Sun; the Book Sense pick Ghosts in the Garden; the autobiography of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, Flow; the acclaimed business fable Zenobia; and the critically acclaimed novels for young adults, Undercover and House of Dance. A third YA novel, Nothing but Ghosts, is due out in June 2009. And a fourth young adult novel, The Heart Is Not a Size, will be released in March 2010. “The Longest Distance,” a short story, appears in the May 2009 HarperTeen anthology, No Such Thing as the Real World.

Kephart is a winner of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fiction grant, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Leeway grant, a Pew Fellowships in the Arts grant, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. Kephart’s essays are frequently anthologized, she has judged numerous competitions, and she has taught workshops at many institutions, to all ages. In the fall of 2009, Kephart will teach the advanced nonfiction workshop at the University of Pennsylvania.  Check out her blog.

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

No Surrender Soldier by Christine Kohler

February 4, 2014 by

Source: Borrowed from Anna
Hardcover, 208 pages
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No Surrender Soldier by Christine Kohler is a well researched debut novel for young adults, though probably on the older end of the age range 11+ given the graphic pig slaughtering and mature themes.  Set in 1972 during the Vietnam War, it still has roots in WWII.  During WWII, the Japanese invaded and many of the inhabitants of Guam were used and abused by their captors, particularly the women.  Fifteen year-old Kiko Chargalauf inadvertently learns about his own family’s history with the Japanese invaders.  It’s more than he can take when he stumbles upon a straggler in the boonies on Guam behind his house, as he tries to separate reality from anger when he realizes the crimes Japanese soldiers committed against Guam’s residents.

“Stragglers are what we call Japanese soldiers who never surrendered after World War II.  As far as I was concerned, my parents used fear of stragglers as an excuse, like some people use the boogie man, when they didn’t want me to go into the boonies.  I shook my head.  ‘No straggler would last that long.'” (page 29 ARC)

At its heart, the novel is a coming of age story.  Kiko is struggling with his new responsibilities at the family tourist shop, as his brother is overseas fighting in Vietnam as a pilot.  But he also has become his grandfather’s babysitter as the old man’s dementia gets worse, transporting him to those terrifying days in WWII.  As Kiko struggles to become a man and still enjoy his childhood, he’s forced to grow up more quickly than he’d like — fighting every step of the way.

On the flip side, readers will see the internal struggles of Lance Corporal of the Japanese Imperial Army Isamu Seto as he not only scavenges for food, jumps at every noise, and tries to stay hidden from military forces that could imprison him.  Tenacity and courage bring Kiko, Seto, and the grandfather together as the past is forgiven and a mutual respect grows between them.  No Surrender Soldier by Christine Kohler is about perseverance, forgiveness, and growing up, but it’s also about how war threatens and shapes all of us, even those who are not directly fighting in it.

About the Author:

Christine Kohler is the author of NO SURRENDER SOLDIER. She is a former journalist, teacher and writing instructor for the Institute of Children’s Literature (ICL).

3rd book (WWII and Vietnam War) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

 

5th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

 

 

 

3rd book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Filed Under: 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, ARC, borrowed copy, challenges, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, reviews Tagged With: , ,