Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2009

Guest Author - Kathryne Kennedy

Enchanting the Beast By Kathryne Kennedy ISBN: 978-0-505-52764-6 Leisure Love Spell Historical Fantasy Romance Grimspell castle. With its dark, imposing stone walls, it certainly looked haunted. As a ghost-hunter, Lady Philomena was accustomed to restless spirits. But she found the dark, imposing nature of the castle's owner far more haunting than any specter. London Society might not approve of shape-shifters such as Sir Nicodemus Wulfson, but firmly-on-the-shelf Philomena rather enjoyed the young baronet's sudden interest in sniffing around her skirts. She'd even consider giving in to him altogether if not for a murderer on the loose-a beast that might just be Nico himself. Read the first chapter, watch the book video, and read more reviews at: http://www.kathrynekennedy.com/EnchantingtheBeast.html Enter to win a 5-carat London blue topaz princess-style necklace at: http://www.kathrynekennedy.com/contest.html Read the author’s interview with the hero: http://

Author Guest Post - Tanya Egan Gibson

Readers, please join me welcoming Author Tanya Egan Gibson who will be guest blogging here today! About the Book Did you know that less than a third of 13-year olds are readers? As a former high school English teacher, Tanya Egan Gibson was well aware of this gloomy statistic. But she was still flabbergasted when a bright student told her, “It’s not your fault, Mrs. Gibson—I’ve just never read a book I liked.” In her debut novel, HOW TO BUY A LOVE OF READING (Dutton, May 2009, $25.95), Gibson introduces readers to Carley Wells, a teen just like the one in her classroom, who never met a book she liked. Carley’s nouveau riche parents, distraught at the prospect of looming college applications, decide to fix this by commissioning a book to be written just for Carley, a book she’ll have to love, one that will impress their entire wealthy Long Island town with their devotion to the arts. They will buy their daughter a love of reading. ********************* BOOKS AS FUN By Tanya Ega

MATING RITUALS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN WASP by Lauren Lipton

Mating Rituals of the North American WASP By Lauren Lipton 368 p, 5 Spot, ISBN: 978-0446197977 Lauren Lipton returns with a romantic comedy about two seemingly mismatched strangers who fall in love and get married—but not exactly in that order. New Yorker Peggy Adams is upset when she wakes up next to a strange man after a night in Las Vegas she can't remember...but she's horrified when she discovers she has married him! Luke Sedgwick is WASP royalty, the last of the New Nineveh, Connecticut, Sedgwicks. He might also have been perfect, if Peggy weren't already "pre-engaged" to her live-in boyfriend (with a promise ring to prove it). Peggy and Luke agree to get an annulment ASAP—and then receive an offer they can't refuse. Luke's eccentric Great-aunt Abigail offers the two the chance to make millions on the family estate: All they have to do is stay married for a year. Peggy is soon pretending to be one-half of the perfect couple among New England&

Author Guest Post - Kristina Riggle (Giveaway!)

Real Life & Liars Kristina Riggle 352 p, Harper Collins, 0061706280 About the Book As a wilted flower child, Mira Zielinski has never been one to follow orders. Not from her husband, not from her boss - not even from her oncologist. Mira has her own idea about handling her newly diagnosed breast cancer, and it does not involve hopping up on the operating table. Her grown children will no doubt object -- when she gets around to telling them. As they come home for the weekend of Mira and Max's thirty-fifth wedding anniversary party, her kids harbor some secret trials. Middle child Ivan's lifelong desire to be a songwriter is withering on the vine after years of futility and his dating haplessness is so familiar, it's almost a family joke. The impulsive and very young youngest child Irina will walk in the door with a surprise groom, though she's already looking for the escape hatch in her shiny new marriage. As for the oldest, Katya, let's just say that it wou

Author Guest Post - Matt Rees

Readers, please join me welcoming Matt Beynon Rees , Author of The Omar Yussef Mysteries , who will be guest blogging here again today! ********************* Baksheeshed to the Bone By Matt Beynon Rees It turns out Jesus was right. I know, because I found a Good Samaritan. Really, he was a good guy, and he actually was a Samaritan. There’re still a few of them about. In January, my new Palestinian crime novel THE SAMARITAN’S SECRET was about to be published. To help promote it, I decided to film a video clip using many of the locations from the story, much of which unfolds on a West Bank hilltop where the last remnants of the ancient Samaritan tribe live. There are just 370 of them, high above the violent city of Nablus, near the site where they believe their ancient Temple stood. My friend videographer David Blumenfeld and I headed from our homes in Jerusalem to shoot the video. The day before I’d spoken with a Samaritan priest to arrange some meetings and to be sure the e

Book Excerpt - A Little Light Magic by Joy Nash

A Little Light Magic by Joy Nash 336 p, Leisure Books (May 26, 2009), ISBN-10: 050552693X Chapter 1 Nick Santangelo checked his watch as he climbed the cracked concrete steps. Five twenty-nine. Right on time and this couldn't take long--there was a mountain of paper he had to move across his desk before tomorrow. Mentally, he plotted out his evening. Two minutes to explain he couldn't do the job, five to drive home and grab a sandwich, fifteen to get back to his office in Atlantic City. He rapped on the frame of a battered screen door. "Hello?" No answer. He pounded again, harder this time. "Hello?" "What? Oh! Just a minute." The door opened. "Hi," a breathless voice said. "Can I help you?" Nick opened his mouth to answer, then took a good look at the woman standing in the doorway and shut it again. She wasn't at all what he'd expected. Not that he'd been expecting anything. But if he had been

Mother's Day Book Giveaway

*** Winner - Joanne (shiloki@...) *** I had hoped to post this sooner, but sleep-deprivation that comes hand in hand with a newborn, put it clean out of my head. So I'll make it an easy one. GIVEAWAY The Prize One lucky winner will get all the 5 books listed below. 1. Miracles of Motherhood ISBN: 1931722927 2. Odd Mom Out By Jane Porter ISBN: 0446699233 3. Mommy Grace By Sheila Schuller Coleman ISBN: 0446545414 4. Beginner's Greek By James Collins ISBN: 0316021563 5. The Road Home By Rose Tremain ISBN: 0316002623 Books will be sent directly by the generous sponsor, Hachette Books . To Enter Visit Hachette Books . Come back here and tell me which book of theirs (apart from the prize books) are perfect for Mother's day. Please include your email address at the end of your comment in the format " xyz AT abc DOT com " so that you can be notified should you be chosen as a winner. No email address = No Entry For Extra Entries Plea

Giveaway - Testimony by Anita Shreve

*** Winner - Denise *** Testimony by Anita Shreve Little, Brown and Company, 320 p, Fiction, ISBN: 9780316059862 At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices--those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal--that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment. Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in Testimony a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellingly explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions. View the Interactive eBook   Listen to an Excerpt ;

A Conversation with Marina Fiorato

Q:  Could you tell us a little bit about your personal and professional background, and when it was you decided  to lead a literary life? A: I was born and educated in the north of England and at university I studied history. I then rebelled against my parents’ academic background by going to art school and entering the film and music business! I began by generating onscreen graphics and I was lucky enough to work on films like Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie and Proof of Life with Russell Crowe. I shifted into rock music and worked with U2 and the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith, but when I became pregnant with my first child I took maternity leave. It was then that my old life found me again, and it was after I had my son that I had the idea for the story for Glassblower. I wrote the book while I was on leave and never returned to my job. I think I had been trying to be something I was not, and then, when I had a child of my own, ideas of heritage and my Venetian origins became enorm