BACKSEAT SAINTS AUDIO BOOK: PREVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

NATIONAL AUDIO BOOK MONTH GIVEAWAY
LAST AUDIO BOOK FOR THIS SPECIAL MONTH!
GIVEAWAY ENDED
BACKSEAT SAINTS
AUDIO BOOK
BY JOSHILYN JACKSON
READ BY JOSHILYN JACKSON

ABOUT THE AUDIO BOOK:

Rose Mae Lolley is a fierce and dirty girl, long-suppressed under flowery skirts and bow-trimmed ballet flats. As "Mrs. Ro Grandee" she's trapped in a marriage that's thick with love and sick with abuse. Her true self has been bound in the chains of marital bliss in rural Texas, letting "Ro" make eggs, iron shirts, and take her punches. She seems doomed to spend the rest of her life battered outside by her husband and inside by her former self, until fate throws her in the path of an airport gypsy---one who shares her past and knows her future. The tarot cards foretell that Rose's beautiful, abusive husband is going to kill her. Unless she kills him first. Hot-blooded Rose Mae escapes from under Ro's perky compliance and emerges with a gun and a plan to beat the hand she's been dealt. Following messages that her long-missing mother has left hidden for her in graffiti and behind paintings, Rose and her dog Gretel set out from Amarillo, TX back to her hometown of Fruiton, AL, and then on to California, unearthing a host of family secrets as she goes. Running for her life, she realizes that she must face her past in order to overcome her fate---death by marriage---and become a girl who is strong enough to save herself from the one who loves her best. BACKSEAT SAINTS will dazzle readers with a fresh and heartwrenching portrayal of the lengths a mother will go to right the wrongs she's created, and how far a daughter will go to escape the demands of forgiveness. With the seed of a minor character from her popular best-seller, GODS IN ALABAMA, Jackson has built a whole new story full of her trademark sly wit, endearingly off-kilter characters, and utterly riveting plot twists.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

I'm a thirty-something mother of two who lives in semi-rural Georgia. I have two kids, my son Sam, and my daughter, Maisy. I think of myself as a stay-at-home-mom who writes. I've always written. My parents have books I wrote and self-published using the "crayola-and-stapler" method. I've always made time for it and I married a man who took my writing seriously enough to treat my time like it was valuable even though I was "just a housewife." That's a rare man, but it took me awhile to see it; we were best friends for seven years before I noticed what a catch he was. So writing, wifing, mothering, that's my real life and it feels very natural to me to be doing all these things.

Publishing, however, is quite a different story. Going to New York, book tours, seeing my words in print with gorgeous covers in my local book store....all that seems as fictional to me as anything I make up in my novels. I always have this faint tinge of surprise when I realize my friend Caryn, who calls me to talk books and ask for my pages and gives me invaluable feedback for revisions, is actually my editor who holds an actual book contract with my name on it in actual New York City. Weird.

I'm very involved with my church, Powder Springs First United Methodist, and I am on the school council my son's elementary school. I like to bake and a bread machine is the top of my Christmas list. I think these things might surprise people who have read my novels. My books are funny and have, I think, a very positive world view at the bottom of them, but the humor is often dark and I tend to have some violent undercurrents. After Gods in Alabama came out, I got a little bit of a "What's a nice girl like you doing with a book like this?" reaction. I think that edge in my stories comes from the way I read — I am hugely eclectic and so my influences are very scattered.

While my favorite writers will probably always be Harper Lee and Flannery O'Connor and I am devoted to the work of contemporary southern novelists like Sonny Brewer and Mindy Friddle, I also love manly gunplay writers like Dennis LeHane, Michael Connelly, and Lee Child. Probably my favorite new writer is Cornelia Read. As a child I was utterly devoted to pulp: Edgar Rice Burroughs and all the Conan the Barbarian books were mixed in with my Roald Dahl and Frances Hodgson Burnett.

If you would like to find out more about this fascinating author visit: http://joshilynjackson.com and her blog: http://joshilynjackson.com/mt

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO ANNA AND THE
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP, I HAVE
THREE COPIES OF THIS EXCITING
AUDIO BOOK TO GIVE AWAY!


--U.S. AND CANADIAN RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT AUTHOR JOSHILYN JACKSON OR HER WORK BY GOING TO HER WEBSITE HERE.

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND THEN COME BACK AND LEAVE A LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE OTHER CURRENT GIVEAWAY OF MINE YOU ARE CURRENTLY TRYING TO WIN. ONLY ONE OTHER GIVEAWAY THIS TIME PLEASE

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, JULY 16!

GOOD LUCK!

JUNE 30th WINNERS

WAR
AN AUDIO BOOK
BY SEBASTIAN JUNGER
****************
THANKS TO ANNA AND THE GOOD FOLKS
AT THE HACHETTE BOOK GROUP,
I HAVE THREE COPIES OF THIS
AUDIO BOOK TO GIVEAWAY!
THE WINNERS ARE:

#18 Christine H

#49 Linda

#23 nfmgirl

CONGRATULATIONS!
**********************
HACHETTE'S FATHER'S
DAY FABULOUS
BOOK GIVEAWAY!

IN HONOR OF ALL THE FABULOUS FATHER'S,
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP HAS A SET OF ALL
SIX BOOKS
FOR A SPECIAL FATHER IN YOUR LIFE!
*********************************
WAR By Sebastian Junger
MOMENT OF GLORY By John Feinstein
MIRACLE ON THE 17th GREEN By James Patterson, Peter de Jonge
INNOCENT By Scott Turow
OIL By Tom Bower
BEYOND BELIEF By Josh Hamilton, Tim Keown
***************************
THANKS TO VALERIE AND MY FRIENDS
AT THE HACHETTE BOOK GROUP,
I HAVE ONE SET OF ALL SIX OF THESE
FABULOUS BOOKS TO GIVEAWAY!
THE WINNER IS:

#173 Crystal H.

CONGRATULATIONS!
*********************

WRONG
Why experts* keep failing us--and how
to know when not to trust them *Scientists,
finance wizards, doctors, relationship gurus,
celebrity CEOs, high-powered consultants,
health officials and more
BY DAVID H. FREEDMAN
*****************
THANKS TO VALERIE AND THE
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP, I HAVE
THREE COPIES OF THIS INTERESTING
BOOK TO GIVE AWAY!
THE WINNERS ARE:

#9 enyl

#12 degood

#52 baileythebookworm

CONGRATULATIONS!
*************************

THE BARBERY PIRATES: REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

THE BARBARY PIRATES
BY WILLIAM DIETRICH

ABOUT THE BOOK:

As dazzling and action packed as the best novels of James Rollins, George MacDonald Fraser, and Steve Berry, The Barbary Pirates will have readers cheering for William Dietrich and his dashing hero, Ethan Gage!

Swashbuckling American explorer and ladies' man Ethan Gage has seen his fair share of danger, having braved the sands of Egypt, the perils of the Atlantic Ocean, and the harsh wilderness of early America. Once more, he finds himself in a desperate race—this time with the Barbary Pirates, a powerful band of Muslim outlaws from North Africa. Also after Ethan is his nemesis—and former lover—Aurora Somerset, member of a dangerous sect called the Egyptian Rite. The prize is the Mirror of Archimedes, an ancient superweapon that, according to legend, once burned a Roman fleet with its power. In 1802, this death ray could tip the balance of power in the Mediterranean, and Ethan must stop the pirates from using it against the American, English, and French fleets.

From the salons and brothels of the Palais Royal of Paris, where the quest for information about his lost love Astiza involves real-life scientists and engineers—including inventor Robert Fulton—Ethan must travel at Napoleon's behest to the canals of Venice, the caves of Santorini, the dungeons of Tripoli, and finally to treachery on the high seas in the Mediterranean.

Can Ethan rescue Astiza without betraying the cause of his own United States? Can he save the two-year-old son he only recently discovered he had without allowing the Egyptian Rite to finally dominate the world? And when the sun rises on the Mirror of Archimedes, will everything Ethan cares about be set afire?

Delivering the fast-paced adventure, uncanny wit, and page-turning historical excitement that readers have come to expect from the masterful William Dietrich, The Barbary Pirates is Ethan Gage at his winningest, most hilarious, and most death defying.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

William (Bill) Dietrich's historical and action thrillers have been translated into 28 languages. Dietrich is also a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, nonfiction author, and college professor of environmental journalism. He has won the Washington Governor Writer's Award and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award.

He currently is exciting readers with his Ethan Gage Adventures, a series featuring an imperfect American adventurer who is not only a protege of the late Benjamin Franklin—but also a gambler, sharpshooter, treasure-hunter and romantic, who manages to get into plenty of trouble with women. Ethan's story entwines with Napoleon Bonaparte's, whom he first meets in Napoleon's Pyramids and is later allied to and odds with in The Rosetta Key and The Dakota Cipher. A fourth novel for the series is in the works.

Dietrich also wrote the Roman-era historical novels Hadrian's Wall and The Scourge of God as well as the earlier thrillers Ice Reich, Getting Back, and Dark Winter.

His book-writing began with The Final Forest: The Battle For The Last Great Trees of the Pacific Northwest and Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River. A collection of nature essays that first appeared in The Seattle Times is titled Natural Grace. He wrote the text for the Art Wolfe photo book On Puget Sound and essays for books on Skagit and Whatcom counties and Fidalgo Island, his home stomping grounds in the state of Washington. He writes and speaks frequently on the environment.

Dietrich's love of history and fiction was nurtured when growing up in Tacoma. He caught the journalism bug when studying at Fairhaven College and Western Washington University (WWU), where he married his wife Holly. Journalism jobs followed in the Northwest and Washington, D.C., including covering the eruption of Mount St. Helens for the Vancouver, Washington Columbian and the Exxon Valdez oil spill for The Seattle Times. Bill was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and the recipient of National Science Foundation fellowships that got him to Antarctica and the South Pole, which inspired his first novel.

His first book wasn't started until he was 38, and the first novel—roughed out on an icebreaker—wasn't underway until he was 45. Some men get a sports car in midlife; Bill wrote about Nazis.

In 2006 he began teaching and advising a student magazine called The Planet at his alma mater, WWU. He feels fortunate to have been able to bounce between the fiction and journalism worlds and to be reenergized by his students.

He and Holly live on the edge of Washington's San Juan Islands within eyeball distance of three national parks, but Dietrich loves visiting great cities and crawling around old ruins. He has two grown daughters and can see bald eagles, herons, and raccoons from his office window.

MY REVIEW:

Author William Dietrich’s popular character, Ethan Gage, is back in THE BARBARY PIRATES, which begins in 1802 with a group of famous scholars who are heading to Paris to meet with Napoleon. The scholars are the famous paleontologist, Georges Cuvier from France; geologist extraordinaire, William Smith, from England,; and Robert Fulton, the famous inventor from America. One of Fulton’s invention, the famous Nautilus submarine, in fact, comes into play late in the story.

Gage is an American adventurer who makes friends with the side that is most beneficial to him, be it the British or the French army of Napoleon. Gage is a mix of swashbuckling pirate and dashing hero who often finds himself involved in complicated, spine-tingling circumstances. While being sent to protect these famous men and their ship from the dreaded Barbary Pirates, he is also going there to meet with Napoleon to convince him to agree to President Thomas Jefferson’s offer of what would someday be known as the Louisiana Purchase. Napoleon seems agreeable but wants a favor in return from Ethan. Having heard of the mythical mirror of Archimedes, he wants Gage to set out to find it. It is this that takes Gage and his group across the Mediterranean Sea and into the middle of an international predicament.

Their exciting adventures include getting lost in tunnels carved out by the Knights Templar and discovering one of their shipmates is really a member of the Barberry Pirates. The Pirates are bad enough but then Gage finds out that an old nemesis of his, Aurora Somerset, is in league with them. She is out for revenge and shrewdly, brings back Gage’s long lost love, Astiza. If he doesn’t do what Aurora asks, Astiza will be thrown into prostitution and Ethan’s son, Horus, will be given over to an unsavory gang who will do all means of hideous acts to him.

Will Ethan protect his love and his newly found son, as well as the wise men he has been paid to care for? Can he find the illusive mirror of Archimedes? What will the pirates do to all of them and will Gage be able to stop the evil Aurora?

In THE BARBARY PIRATES, William Dietrich has presented historical fiction with so many well written actual people and characters, that readers are taken in from the first page. He adds just enough humor to allow readers to pleasantly sit on the edge of their seats and try very hard to put the enjoyable book down without much success. This is my first Dietrich novel but won’t be my last. I found Gage to be a character that I would like to read more about and go back and pick up on what I have missed of him already.

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO KYLE AND GOOD PEOPLE
AT HARPER COLLINS PUBLISHING,
I HAVE 3 COPIES OF THIS EXCITING
BOOK TO GIVE AWAY. HERE IS WHAT
YOU NEED TO DO TO WIN A COPY!

--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT THIS REVIEW OR BOOK DESCRIPTION THAT WOULD MAKE YOU WANT TO READ THE BOOK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING ABOUT WILLIAM DIETRICH FROM THE "FUN STUFF" SECTION ABOUT HIM ON THE HARPER COLLINS WEBSITE HERE

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND LEAVE A LINK I CAN FOLLOW IN THE ENTRY

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ANY OTHER CURRENT GIVEAWAY OF MINE YOU HAVE ENTERED. YOU CAN CHECK THE GIVEAWAY COLUMN ON THE RIGHT. IF YOU HAVEN'T ENTERED SOME, PLEASE GO AHEAD. EACH ENTRY YOU COMMENT SEPARATELY ABOUT WILL COUNT AS ONE MORE ENTRY TOWARD WINNING THE BOOK!

GIVEAWAY ENDS
6 PM, EST, JULY 15!

GOOD LUCK

JUNE 29th WINNERS!

A MAZE OF GRACE
BY TRISH RYAN
*****************
THANKS TO VALERIE AND MY FRIENDS
AT THE HACHETTE BOOK GROUP,
I HAVE THREE COPIES OF THIS
WONDERFUL BOOK TO GIVEAWAY!
THE WINNERS ARE:

#70 cherdon

#18 Alexandra

#5 Rebecca O

CONGRATULATIONS!
********************

THE AGE OF
THE UNTHINKABLE
Why the New World Disorder Constantly
Surprises Us And What We Can Do About It
BY JOSHUA COOPER RAMO
********************
THANKS TO VALERIE AND MY FRIENDS
AT THE HACHETTE BOOK GROUP,
I HAVE THREE COPIES OF THIS
FASCINATING BOOK TO GIVEAWAY!
THE WINNERS ARE:

#31 Jeff

#132 ikkinlala

#2 rhapsodyinbooks

CONGRATULATIONS!
**********************

LIVE LONG, FINISH STRONG
AN AUDIO BOOK
BY GLORIA COPELAND
*****************
THANKS TO ANNA AND THE GOOD FOLKS
AT THE HACHETTE BOOK GROUP,
I HAVE THREE COPIES OF THIS
AUDIO BOOK TO GIVEAWAY!
THE WINNERS ARE:

#14 Steve Capell

#27 Marci J

#6 Team JC

CONGRATULATIONS!
**************************

THE LUNATIC EXPRESS: PREVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
THE LUNATIC EXPRESS
BY CARL HOFFMAN

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Indonesian Ferry Sinks. Peruvian Bus Plunges Off Cliff. African Train Attacked by Mobs. Whenever he picked up the newspaper, Carl Hoffman noticed those short news bulletins, which seemed about as far from the idea of tourism, travel as the pursuit of pleasure, as it was possible to get. So off he went, spending six months circumnavigating the globe on the world's worst conveyances: the statistically most dangerous airlines, the most crowded and dangerous ferries, the slowest buses, and the most rickety trains. The Lunatic Express takes us into the heart of the world, to some its most teeming cities and remotest places: from Havana to Bogotá on the perilous Cuban Airways. Lima to the Amazon on crowded night buses where the road is a washed-out track. Across Indonesia and Bangladesh by overcrowded ferries that kill 1,000 passengers a year. On commuter trains in Mumbai so crowded that dozens perish daily, across Afghanistan as the Taliban closes in, and, scariest of all, Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., by Greyhound.

The Lunatic Express is the story of traveling with seatmates and deckmates who have left home without American Express cards on conveyances that don't take Visa, and seldom take you anywhere you'd want to go. But it's also the story of traveling as it used to be -- a sometimes harrowing trial, of finding adventure in a modern, rapidly urbanizing world and the generosity of poor strangers, from ear cleaners to urban bus drivers to itinerant roughnecks, who make up most of the world's population. More than just an adventure story, The Lunatic Express is a funny, harrowing and insightful look at the world as it is, a planet full of hundreds of millions of people, mostly poor, on the move and seeking their fortunes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Carl Hoffman has driven the Baja 1000, ridden reindeer in Siberia, sailed an open dinghy 250 miles, and traveled to 65 countries. When he's able to stay put for more than a few months at a time, he lives in Washington, D.C., where his three children make fun of him on a pretty constant basis. He is a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler and Wired magazines, and his stories about travel and technology also appear in Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Men's Journal and Popular Mechanics.

REVIEW:

WATCH FOR MY REVIEW AND BONUS ENTRIES COMING SOON!

GIVEAWAY

THANK YOU TO MY FRIENDS AT
BROADWAY/RANDOM HOUSE, I HAVE
ONE COPY OF THIS INTERESTING BOOK
TO GIVE AWAY TO ONE LUCKY WINNER!



--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT THE INFORMATION FOR THE LUNATIC EXPRESS ABOVE THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO WIN

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND THEN COME BACK AND LEAVE A LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE OTHER CURRENT GIVEAWAY YOU HAVE ENTERED. ONLY ONE THIS TIME, PLEASE!

+5 MORE ENTRIES???: COMMENT ON IF YOU ARE A SUBSCRIBER TO SWAGBUCKS WITH ME AND IF SO, GO TO SWAGBUCKS AND SEARCH AND WIN SOME BUCKS, COME BACK AND TELL ME HOW MANY YOU WIN AND YOU WILL GET ENTRIES UP TO +5 IF YOU WIN 5 OR MORE SWAGBUCKS! THERE IS A WIDGET AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE IF YOU WANT TO SEARCH FROM THERE AS WELL AS IN THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN!

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, JULY 12

THE MADONNAS OF ECHO PARK: REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
THE MADONNAS OF ECHO PARK
BY BRANDO SKYHORSE

ABOUT THE BOOK:

We slipped into this country like thieves, onto the land that once was ours. With these words, spoken by an illegal Mexican day laborer, The Madonnas of Echo Park takes us into the unseen world of Los Angeles, following the men and women who cook the meals, clean the homes, and struggle to lose their ethnic identity in the pursuit of the American dream. When a dozen or so girls and mothers gather on an Echo Park street corner to act out a scene from a Madonna music video, they find themselves caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. In the aftermath, Aurora Esperanza grows distant from her mother, Felicia, who as a housekeeper in the Hollywood Hills establishes a unique relationship with a detached housewife.

The Esperanzas’ shifting lives connect with those of various members of their neighborhood. A day laborer trolls the streets for work with men half his age and witnesses a murder that pits his morality against his illegal status; a religious hypocrite gets her comeuppance when she meets the Virgin Mary at a bus stop on Sunset Boulevard; a typical bus route turns violent when cultures and egos collide in the night, with devastating results; and Aurora goes on a journey through her gentrified childhood neighborhood in a quest to discover her own history and her place in the land that all Mexican Americans dream of, "the land that belongs to us again."

Like the Academy Award–winning film Crash, The Madonnas of Echo Park follows the intersections of its characters and cultures in Los Angeles. In the footsteps of Junot Díaz and Sherman Alexie, Brando Skyhorse in his debut novel gives voice to one neighborhood in Los Angeles with an astonishing— and unforgettable—lyrical power.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Born and raised in Echo Park, CA, Brando Skyhorse is a graduate of Stanford University and the MFA Writers’ Workshop program at UC Irvine. For the past ten years he has worked in New York publishing. His next book, also forthcoming from Free Press, is a memoir about growing up with five stepfathers.

REVIEW:

Brando Skyhorse gives readers a book in which each chapter could almost be a short story if not for the fact that he expertly weaves them all together into one amazing book, THE MADONNAS OF ECHO PARK. Basically, Skyhorse writes about two families and their stories link together to create what is ECHO PARK through the author’s eyes. Through his broadly assorted troupe of players their views of the culture in the Echo Park neighborhood are conveyed to the reader making readers feel as though they are a part of the community themselves.

This community is basically focused around the lives of Aurora Espinoza, who grows up in constant battle with her mother, Felicia, and whose absentee father narrates the opening of the story. Also, there is poor lonely Beatriz who buys coats to warm her soul after an unnerving encounter with the Virgin Mary at a bus stop. Gang member Manny Mendoza is the one who fires the bullet that mistakenly kills a 3-year old girl dancing with a group on a street corner to a Madonna song, which was actually recorded in that area. Mendoza goes on to brag about his accidental deed and it results in consequences he never expected from his tough son who is shocked by this news. The community also includes Manny's estranged brother Efren, a “by-the-books” bus driver who is intolerant of Mexicans who don‘t have the proper paperwork (thus very timely with all the talk of illegal immigrants currently going on).

Many more of Skyhorse's characters are connected in ways they don't even realize and share parts in each others stories. Aurora actually closes the story by basically pulling together all the pieces that were found within the novel itself. Readers are led to understand how even casual events in our lives can fit into a larger piece of a whole that we aren’t even aware of. Brando Skyhorse does an amazing job of creating a stimulating community that offers several different points of view on just what being Mexican in America is like. He speaks of those who think “how can you lose something that never belonged to you?” to those who “incredibly find it“.

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO CAITLIN AT SIMON
AND SCHUSTER, I HAVE THREE
COPIES OF THIS INTERESTING
NEW BOOK TO GIVE AWAY!


--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT THE INFORMATION AND/OR REVIEW FOR THE MADONNAS OF ECHO PARK ABOVE

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND THEN COME BACK AND LEAVE A LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOME INTERESTING INFORMATION YOU READ ABOUT IN THE INTERVIEW WITH BRANDO SKYHORSE IN THE PUBLISHERS SIMON & SCHUSTER'S WEBSITE HERE

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, JULY 12

JUNE 28th WINNERS!

THE LION
BY NELSON DeMILLE
********************
THANKS TO HENRY AND THE GOOD FOLKS
AT THE HACHETTE BOOK GROUP,
I HAVE FIVE COPIES OF THIS GREATLY
ANTICIPATED BOOK TO GIVEAWAY!
THE WINNERS ARE:

#17 Linda Kish

#36 Cindy W.

#44 Sheri

#98 Marie

#5 holdenj

CONGRATULATIONS!
************************

PUT ON YOUR CROWN
AUDIO BOOK
Life Changing Moments on the Path to Queendom
BY QUEEN LATIFAH
AND SAMANTHA MARSHALL
READ BY QUEEN LATIFAH
***********************
THANKS TO ANNA AND THE GOOD FOLKS
AT THE HACHETTE BOOK GROUP,
I HAVE THREE COPIES OF THIS
FABULOUS BOOK TO GIVE AWAY!
THE WINNERS ARE:

#31 Benita

#15 Christine H

#6 misskallie2000 already won
new winner is....
#32 catss99

CONGRATULATIONS!
**********************

PUT ON YOUR CROWN
Life Changing Moments on the Path to Queendom
BY QUEEN LATIFAH
*****************
THANKS TO ANNA AND THE GOOD FOLKS
AT THE HACHETTE BOOK GROUP,
I HAVE THREE COPIES OF THIS
FABULOUS BOOK TO GIVE AWAY!
WINNERS ARE:

#58 Anonymous (JOYE)

#1 Martha Lawson

#12 Patsy

CONGRATULATIONS!
************************

THE LOST GIRLS

BY JENNIFER BAGGETT,
HOLLY C. CORBETT,
& AMANDA PRESSNER
**********************
THANKS TO KYLE AND GOOD PEOPLE
AT HARPER COLLINS PUBLISHING,
I HAVE 3 COPIES OF THIS WONDERFUL
BOOK TO GIVE AWAY.
THE WINNERS ARE:

#172 Kim

#134 rubynreba

#176 Benita

CONGRATULATIONS!
************************

BLACK HILLS AUDIO BOOK: PREVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

NATIONAL AUDIO BOOK MONTH

GIVEAWAY ENDED
BLACK HILLS AUDIO BOOK
BY DAN SIMMONS

ABOUT THE AUDIO BOOK:

When Paha Sapa, a young Sioux warrior, "counts coup" on General George Armstrong Custer as Custer lies dying on the battlefield at the Little Bighorn, the legendary general's ghost enters him - and his voice will speak to him for the rest of his event-filled life.

Seamlessly weaving together the stories of Paha Sapa, Custer, and the American West, Dan Simmons depicts a tumultuous time in the history of both Native and white Americans. Haunted by Custer's ghost, and also by his ability to see into the memories and futures of legendary men like Sioux war-chief Crazy Horse, Paha Sapa's long life is driven by a dramatic vision he experienced as a boy in his people's sacred Black Hills. In August of 1936, a dynamite worker on the massive Mount Rushmore project, Paha Sapa plans to silence his ghost forever and reclaim his people's legacy-on the very day FDR comes to Mount Rushmore to dedicate the Jefferson face.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Dan Simmons is the award-winning author of several novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Terror and Drood. He lives in Colorado. Visit www.dansimmons.com.

Audio and Video

• View the Video
• Listen to an Excerpt

AUDIO BOOK
GIVEAWAY
THANKS TO ANNA AND THE
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP, I HAVE
3 COPIES OF THIS EXCITING AUDIO
BOOK TO GIVE AWAY. HERE IS WHAT
YOU NEED TO DO TO WIN A COPY!



--U.S. AND CANADIAN RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON WHAT YOUR FEELINGS ARE ABOUT READING A BOOK AS OPPOSED TO LISTENING TO AN AUDIO BOOK..PREFERENCE? REASON?

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON IF YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG AND HOW

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+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK AND LEAVE A LINK

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, JULY 14 !

MR. ROSENBLUM DREAMS IN ENGLISH: REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED

MR. ROSENBLUM
DREAMS IN ENGLISH
BY NATASHA SOLOMONS

ABOUT THE BOOK:

At the outset of World War II, Jack Rosenblum, his wife Sadie, and their baby daughter escape Berlin, bound for London. They are greeted with a pamphlet instructing immigrants how to act like "the English." Jack acquires Saville Row suits and a Jaguar. He buys his marmalade from Fortnum & Mason and learns to list the entire British monarchy back to 913 A.D. He never speaks German, apart from the occasional curse. But the one key item that would make him feel fully British -membership in a golf club-remains elusive.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Natasha Solomons is a 29-year-old screenwriter. She based this story on her own grandparents' experience. Natasha lives in Dorset, England, where she co-writes screenplays with her husband and is pursuing a Ph.D. in eighteenth-century fiction. For more information, visit her at http://www.natashasolomons.wordpress.com/ Follow Natasha Solomons on Twitter.

Audio and Video

MY REVIEW:

MR. ROSEBBLUM DREAMS IN ENGLISH by Natasha Solomons is a heart tugging, beautifully written book about Jack and Sadie Rosenblum. Theirs is the story of two Jewish Germans who migrate to England just before World War II is in full swing. Having left Germany when they did, they were luckily physically spared from the tragedies of Nazi Germany. So wasn’t the case however, for Sadie’s family and it is such a heavy burden to bear that it plays an important part throughout the whole story. Sadie continually tries to remember her life with her family before she was forced to leave. Jack is the polar opposite as he fights to integrate into the English way of life.

Upon arrival in England, Jack was given a handout with information on how to be English, a pamphlet entitled "While You Are in England: Helpful Information". Jack decides that he will follow these guidelines steadfastly. He even stops speaking German, even to Sadie, except occasionally when under stress he comes out with a choice word or two. When Jack is arrested and labeled a "class B enemy alien (possible security risk)", it puzzles Jack and he figures he is still doing something wrong so goes back to his pamphlet guidelines and then adds to them with his own minute details. When it says that you shouldn’t use your hands to gesture as you are talking, Jack works hard on accomplishing this. He explains to Sadie how she must buy haddock on Friday mornings as that is what the typical Englishman’s wife would do.

Jack is dedicated to it to a point that it enables him to become a successful businessman. But the last point on the list writes of how an Englishman must be a member of a golf club. This is his downfall as he is unable to master this. Jack is rejected from every club he attempts to join because he is Jewish. However, Jack is not one to be easily deterred and so he begins to build his own golf course. As Jack tries to be a “good Englishman” learning to play golf, Sadie continues to struggle with her sadness and feeling of seclusion in this new country.

Sadie is reluctant to abandon her Jewish identity, and dislikes her husband's eagerness to do so. She begins writing a list of her own with things like remembering to keep the Sabbath with the strict dietary laws of her religion. Sadie cooks entirely from her mother's recipes. But with Sadie’s following these customs, it only makes her feel more uncomfortable in this new country. She begins to feel very isolated through her own actions and finds her only solace in their baby daughter. The author writes this book about her grandparents and has such an excellent way of describing the life of the Rosenblums as if she were alive through all of this. She naturally also writes with a depth of affectionate feeling and that translates into a lovely, well written story that I found a nice change of pace from books I have been more recently reading.

GIVEAWAY

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