ARE YOU LISTENING? ELEANOR & PARK: A REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S" 
ARE YOU LISTENING? DAY"
I AM EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE TODAY'S
AUDIO BOOK CHOICE....

GIVEAWAY ENDED
ELEANOR & PARK

BY RAINBOW ROWELL

READ BY REBECCA LOWMAN

AND SUNIL MALHOTRA 

ABOUT THE AUDIO BOOK:

Bono met his wife in high school, Park says.
So did Jerry Lee Lewis, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be, she says, we’re 16.
What about Romeo and Juliet?
Shallow, confused, then dead.
I love you, Park says.
Wherefore art thou, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be.

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love—and just how hard it pulled you under. 

Eleanor is the new girl in town, and she's never felt more alone. All mismatched clothes, mad red hair, and chaotic home life, she couldn't stick out more if she tried. Then she takes the seat on the bus next to Park. Quiet, careful, and in Eleanor's eyes, impossibly cool, Park's worked out that flying under the radar is the best way to get by. Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mix tapes, Eleanor and Park fall in love. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you're 16, and you have nothing and everything to lose.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rainbow Rowell is the author of ATTACHMENTS. She has two novels coming out in 2013 -- ELEANOR & PARK in February and FANGIRL in the fall.

Rainbow lives with her husband and two sons in Omaha, Nebraska. Right at this moment, she is probably arguing with someone about something that doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things -- or trying to figure out how Sherlock faked his death.

Blog and other stuff at rainbowrowell.com. Visit Rainbow Rowell's "Bio" at her website HERE.

ABOUT THE NARRATORS:

Rebecca Lowman is a performer of stage, film, and television. In addition to playing the lead in Eve of Understanding, for which she won Best Actress at the 2006 Boston Film Festival, she has appeared in the television series Burn Notice, Private Practice, Criminal Minds, The Shield, Big Love, Without a Trace, Cold Case, and Will & Grace.

Sunil Malhotra’s film credits include Dude, Where’s the Party?; Call Center; 24; ER; Cold Case; and The West Wing. On stage, he’s performed on Broadway, in Mark Taper Forum’s New Works Festival, and at EastWest Players. He is also a writer and director. His recording of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese garnered numerous awards, including the AudioFile Earphones Award.

MY THOUGHTS/REVIEW:
ELEANOR & PARK by Rainbow Rowell was the first book I had read by this author. I was a little hesitant since it is classified YA which I am not. However, it didn’t take 5 minutes of listening to this audio book and I was hooked. ELEANOR & PARK is a delight to listen to. It was nice to relax and hear a good story where the characters felt real and relatable. Rowell does a wonderful job of portraying the time period of the late 1980s and the characters are fleshed out so you feel like you really know them.

Eleanor has a rough home life and is not at all like a “normal” teen. Her ample size and curly red hair single her out and on top of it, the story opens with her being the “new girl” at school. As a former teacher, and from memories of my teens, I KNOW how cruel kids can be with something like this. Park, is Korean and the kids aren’t that bad to him but he doesn’t run in the popular crowd either. They don’t let a chance go by when they don’t play on his ethnicity and include racial slurs. And so these two different teens are both outsiders in their own way and with Rowell telling the story from their alternating points of view, one really gets to know them and feel for them. As the narrative progresses, Eleanor and Park begin to find many things to bond over and so it is easy to see how this story of young love could really happen.

ELEANOR & PARK is a quick read (listen) and one you won’t regret. Rainbow Rowell is a smart author and takes readers back to the eighties and their memories of first love with a certain ease and grace that I will bet makes you want to read more from her. I know it made me feel that way!

 GIVEAWAY 

 THANKS TO RICHARD AND THE GOOD PEOPLE

AT RANDOM HOUSE AUDIO BOOKS, I HAVE ONE

COPY OF THIS DELIGHTFUL AUDIO 

BOOK, ELEANOR & PARK, TO GIVE 

AWAY TO A LUCKY FOLLOWER

  

--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES, PLEASE
--INCLUDE EMAIL ADDRESS IN COMMENT
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE IN 
ORDER TO COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE ENTRY
 

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT ELEANOR & PARK THAT WOULD MAKE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS AUDIO BOOK 

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

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING BY VISITING AUTHOR RAINBOW ROWELL'S WEBSITE HERE 

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE OTHER CURRENT GIVEAWAY YOU HAVE ENTERED ON MY BLOG. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU CAN COMMENT ON EACH ON SEPARATELY AND GAIN MORE ENTRIES THAT WAY

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE WAY YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN ONE WAY, YOU CAN COMMENT SEPARATELY AND EACH WILL COUNT AS AN ENTRY

  

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
 6 PM, EST, MARCH 14

  GOOD LUCK!

THE SUNSHINE WHEN SHE'S GONE: A PREVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

 GIVEAWAY ENDED 
THE SUNSHINE WHEN SHE'S GONE

BY THEA GOODMAN

ABOUT THE BOOK:

A fresh, funny, and wisely observed debut novel about marriage—about the love, longing and ambivalence exposed when a husband takes the baby on a highly unusual outing

When Veronica Reed wakes up one frigid January morning, two things are “off”—first of all, she has had a good night’s sleep, which hasn’t happened in months, and second, both her husband and her baby are gone. Grateful for the much-needed rest, Veronica doesn’t, at first, seriously question her husband’s trip out to breakfast with baby Clara. Little does she know, her spouse has fled lower Manhattan, with Clara, for some R&R in the Caribbean.

Told through alternating points of view, The Sunshine When She's Gone explores the life-changing impact of parenthood on a couple as individuals and as partners. Thea Goodman brings us into intimacies made tense by sleep-deprivation and to losses and gains made more real by acknowledging them. Here is the story of a couple pushed to the edge and a desperate father’s attempt give them both space to breathe.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Thea Goodman has received the Columbia Fiction Award, a Pushcart Prize Special Mention and fellowships at Yaddo and Ragdale; her short stories have appeared in several journals, notably New England Review, Other Voices and Columbia. Born in New York City, she studied at Sarah Lawrence and earned her MFA from Brooklyn College, CUNY. She has taught writing at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and lives in Chicago with her husband and children. To read more about Thea Goodman, visit her "Bio" on her website HERE.

AN EXCERPT FROM THE SUNSHINE WHEN SHE'S GONE:

1
Thursday Night
John

Kidnap was not the right word. John had simply meant to take Clara to breakfast at the corner diner, where they had good poached eggs and were especially kind to babies. But in the end he couldn’t explain the inexorable pull, the electric thrum that made him rise from the bed, strangely untethered, and begin to shave with scalding water, or the innocence of his motive—he just wanted to be with her. He couldn’t describe the indefinite urgency that had propelled him. Yes, he took the baby with him, but she was his daughter.

Veronica had started it. She’d sat up in bed, waving a finger in protest. “She’s fine,” she’d hissed when John left to check on Clara, as he did every night. Clara slept down the hall, in a nursery with walls the color of pollen. They’d rejected bicycle yellow and lemon yellow in favor of pollen, the potent reproductive center of a flower. As he walked toward the nursery, a small vibration filled the air, the joyful tension that had tinged the atmosphere since Clara was born. The yolky color summoned, spilling warmth onto the stunned concrete floors and his cold bare feet: The baby was warm and breathing. He was sure of it. When he arrived in her room, it was pitch dark. He felt around the baseboards, searching in vain for the delinquent night-light, then stood staring down at the vague shape of the crib but saw only blackness, like the deep velvet center of a pansy. Had she been stolen?  

To finish reading this excerpt, visit the Macmillan website HERE.

PRAISE FOR THE SUNSHINE WHEN SHE'S GONE:

"Thea Goodman shines in The Sunshine When She’s Gone."—Vanity Fair 

"A deft account of love and its sacrifices."—Marie Claire

"[An] exhausted-new-parent fantasy. . . Readers…laughed a lot."—Elle "Readers’ Prize" Pick, March 2013

"First-time novelist Goodman is a master of sustained, 'are-you-KIDDING-me?' tension as John and Veronica compete for the title of Worst Parents Ever. New parents should find validation that their own sleep-deprived insanity is normal and will pass." -- Library Journal

"A sobering tale of two people discovering what it means to be a parent."—Publishers Weekly

"Sharp, intuitive, and empathetic. . . Goodman offers a wickedly incisive take on the pressures of parenthood and the resiliency of marital trust."—Booklist

 

GIVEAWAY

I HAVE ONE COPY OF THIS FASCINATING

NEW NOVEL, THE SUNSHINE WHEN

SHE'S GONE, TO GIVE AWAY

 TO ONE LUCKY FOLLOWER  

 
--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 WHAT YOU READ ABOVE ABOUT THE SUNSHINE WHEN SHE'S GONE THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS BOOK, AND DON'T FORGET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG AND/OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK HERE AND LEAVE ME YOUR LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FIND INTERESTING AT THEA GOODMAN'S WEBSITE HERE 

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE WAY YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN ONE WAY, YOU CAN COMMENT SEPARATELY AND EACH WILL COUNT AS AN ENTRY

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON A CURRENT GIVEAWAY THAT YOU HAVE ENTERED ON MY BLOG. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU MAY COMMENT SEPARATELY FOR EACH TO RECEIVE MORE ENTRIES

 

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT

6 PM, EST, MARCH 14

   GOOD LUCK!

LET'S GET COZY! PEACH PIES AND ALIBIS: A PREVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED 
PEACH PIES AND ALIBIS

 A Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery

BY ELLERY ADAMS

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Ellery Adams serves up a mystery that’s a real peach...

Ella Mae LeFaye’s Charmed Pie Shoppe is wildly popular in Havenwood, Georgia—which is not surprising since Ella Mae can lace her baked goods with enchantments. The shop’s extraordinary success seems destined to continue when Ella Mae meets an engaged couple who hire her to handle the dessert buffet at their wedding.

But Ella Mae has a lot on her plate. She is also searching for the origin of her magical powers—and hoping to determine if the spark of attraction she feels for the handsome Hugh Dylan is authentic or just her new abilities gone awry.

Then Ella Mae discovers a high-standing member of the community dead, and a wedding guest becomes seriously ill at the event she’s catering. Now she’ll have to use all her sleuthing skills and culinary talents to prove her pies don’t contain a killer ingredient . . .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ellery Adams grew up on a beach near the Long Island Sound. Having spent her adult life in a series of landlocked towns, she cherishes her memories of open water, violent storms, and the smell of the sea. Ms. Adams has held many jobs including caterer, retail clerk, car salesperson, teacher, tutor, and tech writer, all the while penning poems, children’s books, and novels. She now writes full-time from her home in Virginia.
 
SOME OTHER BOOKS BY ELLERY ADAMS:

                                                                

                       

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO KAYLEIGH AND THE GOOD FOLKS

AT BERKLEY PRIME CRIME AND PENGUIN BOOKS,

I HAVE ONE COPY OF PEACH PIES AND ALIBIS,

TO GIVE AWAY TO A LUCKY READER

 
--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 WHAT YOU READ ABOVE ABOUT PEACH PIES AND ALIBIS THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS BOOK, AND DON'T FORGET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG AND/OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK HERE AND LEAVE ME YOUR LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FIND INTERESTING AT ELLERY ADAMS' WEBSITE HERE 

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE WAY YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN ONE WAY, YOU CAN COMMENT SEPARATELY AND EACH WILL COUNT AS AN ENTRY 

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON A CURRENT GIVEAWAY THAT YOU HAVE ENTERED ON MY BLOG. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU MAY COMMENT SEPARATELY FOR EACH TO RECEIVE MORE ENTRIES

 

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT

6 PM, EST, MARCH 11

   GOOD LUCK!

BRUNCH WITH BINGO: FIX-IT AND FORGET-IT COOKBOOK: A GIVEAWAY

WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S

"BRUNCH WITH BINGO DAY"
I AM EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THIS SUNDAY'S
   SPECIAL BRUNCH BOOK CHOICE IS....

  GIVEAWAY ENDED 
FIX IT AND FORGET-IT 
COOKBOOK 
Feasting with you Slow Cooker
BY DAWN J. RANCK &
PHYLLIS PELLMAN GOOD 

ABOUT THE COOKBOOK: 

Slow cookers are having a comeback. With good reason. They are friends on a day of running errands. They allow easy entertaining with no last-minute preparation. They are miracles for potluck meals, whether in your home or someone else’s. And vegetarians won’t find a better way to work with dried beans.   

Slow cookers are gentle with the food budget—less expensive ingredients flourish in their slow, moist heat.  Fix-It and Forget-It offers more than 800 recipes—the whole range of recipes slow cookers do well. Tips and Hints are dropped in throughout, urging one additional small step for lots of extra flavor, offering ways to make your cooker a complementary appliance, explaining seasoning to maximum effect.     Bring an element of simplicity—and quality—to your pressured life! Let your slow cooker work for you.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Phyllis Pellman Good is a New York Times bestselling author whose books have sold nearly 10 million copies.

Good's cookbooks have also appeared on the USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. She is the author of Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly: Healthy, Low-Fat Recipes for Your Slow Cooker; Fix-It and Forget-It 5-Ingredient Favorites: Comforting Slow- Cooker Recipes; Fix-It and Forget-It Recipes for Entertaining: Slow-Cooker Favorites for all the Year Round, and Fix-It and Forget-It Diabetic Cookbook: Slow-Cooker Favorites to Include Everyone (with the American Diabetes Association), all in the series.

She and her husband, Merle, live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

For more information about Phyllis Pellman Good, visit www.Fix-ItandForget-It.com and www.facebook.com/fixitandforgetit.

***************************************

Dawn J. Ranck has been a convinced slow-cooker user for years. She, along with her many friends, have been lining up their various-sized cookers on their kitchen counters before they set off each morning—and coming home to richly flavored full dinners.     Ranck , who lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, is the co-author of A Quilter’s Christmas Cookbook and Favorite Recipes with Herbs.

A SAMPLE RECIPE:

MIXED BEAN CASSEROLE

There are lots of ways to doctor up canned pork and beans. The sauce is augmented with bacon, onion, and brown sugar, and there’s a nice variety of beans, for a pretty appearance on the plate. Serve these beans as a side dish, or allow them to star as the main attraction. Cornbread and a green salad would be perfect accompaniments.

 

Makes 8 servings
Prep. Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 7-8 hours
Ideal slow-cooker size: 4-qt.

3 slices bacon, cut up
2 Tbsp. grated onion
31-oz. can pork and beans in tomato sauce
16-oz. can kidney beans, drained
15-oz. can lima beans, or butter beans, drained
3 Tbsp. brown sugar, packed
½ tsp. dry mustard
3 Tbsp. ketchup
1. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker
2. Cover. Cook on Low 7-8 hours.

GIVEAWAY

I HAVE ONE COPY OF THIS EASY.
SPIRAL BOUND, FIX-IT AND FORGET-IT 

COOKBOOK 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 READ ABOVE THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO WIN THE FIX IT AND FORGET-IT COOKBOOK 

+1 MORE ENTRY: TELL IF YOU OWN A SLOW COOKER AND USE IT OR NOT 

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE WAY THAT YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN ONE WAY, COMMENT ABOUT EACH SEPARATELY AND YOU GET MORE ENTRIES!

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE CURRENT GIVEAWAY OF MINE THAT YOU HAVE ENTERED. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU CAN COMMENT ON EACH SEPARATELY AND GAIN MORE ENTRIES THAT WAY

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, MARCH 11
GOOD LUCK!

LET'S GET COZY! THE CHRISTIE CURSE: A PREVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED 
THE CHRISTIE CURSE

 A Book Collector Mystery 

BY VICTORIA ABBOTT

ABOUT THE BOOK:

In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared—making headlines across the world—only to show up eleven days later at a spa under an assumed name. During those eleven days, did she have time to write a play?

Jordan Kelly needs a new job and a new place to live. She’s back in Harrison Falls, New York, living with her not so law-abiding uncles, in debt thanks to a credit card-stealing ex and pending grad school loans.

Enter the perfect job, a research position that includes room and board, which will allow her to spend her days hunting down rare mysteries for an avid book collector. There’s just one problem: her employer, Vera Van Alst—the most hated citizen of Harrison Falls.

Jordan’s first assignment is to track down a rumored Agatha Christie play. It seems easy enough, but Jordan soon finds out that her predecessor was killed while looking for it, and there is still someone out there willing to murder to keep the play out of Vera’s hands. Jordan’s new job is good...but is it worth her life? 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Victoria Abbott is a collaboration between the always very funny and creative artist, photographer and short story author, Victoria Maffini and her mother, Mary Jane Maffini, award-winning author of three mystery series and two dozen short stories. Their four miniature dachshunds are understandably outraged that a pug and some Siamese cats have wiggled their way into the series. Please visit their website HERE to read the full "BIO" on this talented Mother and Daughter.

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 GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO KAYLEIGH AND THE GOOD FOLKS

AT BERKLEY PRIME CRIME AND PENGUIN BOOKS,

I HAVE ONE COPY OF THE CHRISTIE CURSE,

TO GIVE AWAY TO A LUCKY READER

 
--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 WHAT YOU READ ABOVE ABOUT THE CHRISTIE CURSE THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS BOOK, AND DON'T FORGET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG AND/OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK HERE AND LEAVE ME YOUR LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FIND INTERESTING AT VICTORIA ABBOTT'S WEBSITE HERE

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE WAY YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN ONE WAY, YOU CAN COMMENT SEPARATELY AND EACH WILL COUNT AS AN ENTRY

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON A CURRENT GIVEAWAY THAT YOU HAVE ENTERED ON MY BLOG. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU MAY COMMENT SEPARATELY FOR EACH TO RECEIVE MORE ENTRIES

 

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT

6 PM, EST, MARCH 11

   GOOD LUCK!