ARE YOU LISTENING? SMALL BLESSINGS: A REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

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

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GIVEAWAY ENDED
SMALL BLESSINGS

Read by Lorelei King
BY MARTHA WOODROOF
  

ABOUT THE AUDIO BOOK:
Tom Putnam, an English professor at a Virginia women’s college, has resigned himself to a quiet and half-fulfilled life. For more than ten years, his wife Marjory has been a shut-in, a fragile and frigid woman whose neuroses have left her fully dependent on Tom and his formidable mother-in-law, Agnes Tattle. Tom considers his unhappy condition self-inflicted, since Marjory’s condition was exacerbated by her discovery of Tom’s brief and misguided affair with a visiting poetess. But when Tom and Marjory meet Rose Callahan, the campus bookstore’s charming new hire, and Marjory invites Rose to dinner, her first social interaction in a decade, Tom wonders if it’s a sign that change is on the horizon. And when Tom returns home that evening to a letter from the poetess telling him that he’d fathered her son, Henry, and that Henry, now ten, will arrive by train in a few days, it’s clear change is coming whether Tom’s ready or not. 

Martha Woodroof's Small Blessings is funny, heart-warming and poignant, with a charmingly imperfect cast of cinema-ready characters. Listeners will fall in love with the novel’s wonderfully optimistic heart that reminds us that sometimes, when it feels like life is veering irrevocably off track, the track changes in ways we never could have imagined.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

MARTHA WOODROOF was born in the South, went to boarding school and college in New England, ran away to Texas for a while, then fetched up in Virginia. She has written for NPR, npr.org, Marketplace and Weekend America, and for the Virginia Foundation for Humanities Radio Feature Bureau. Her print essays have appeared in such newspapers as the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Small Blessings is her debut novel. She lives with her husband in the Shenandoah Valley. Their closest neighbors are cows.

PRAISE FOR SMALL BLESSINGS:
“In Small Blessings, Woodroof displays a lovely gift for inventive plot turns and glittering moments. The novel brims with life and complexity and characters who never stop surprising themselves, and each other. This is a delightful and splendidly intelligent comedy.” —Margot Livesey,  New York Times bestselling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy

“Small Blessings is a comedy of manners that will capture your heart. Woodroof's prose is tart and sweet — smart enough to make you laugh, but with an aching soul that will make you cry. I loved these characters even as I was chuckling at them, and I know Rose and Tom are a couple you'll relish rooting for. If Jane Austen and Evelyn Waugh collaborated on a story about a small academic community in the South, and Woody Allen directed, Small Blessings might be the result. Get ready for pure pleasure shot through with moments of illumination: maybe this is how love really is.” —Lydia Netzer, author of Shine Shine Shine 

"In the world of Small Blessings, to choose happiness is to take a risk... Optimistic, wise, and beautifully written, this book about love in all its colors, hope, and the glory of third chances will stay with you long after you close the cover."—Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of A Grown Up Kind of Pretty

MY THOUGHTS/REVIEW:
I have been waiting for Martha Woodroof's new novel to come out as what I read about it in previews had me intrigued. I am happy to say I was not disappointed! 

SMALL BLESSINGS by Martha Woodroof is truly an excellent character study with such well-developed personalities that one can really enjoy getting to know them. The fast moving narrative held my interest from the start and I read it in barely two days, as I couldn't put it down. Woodruff gives readers major characters they want to follow like the professor, Tom Putnam, and his wife Marjory, long suffering from a mental illness of sorts. Add a new character to the mix when Rose Callahan comes to town to work in the campus bookstore. She elicits a response from Marjory that everyone is puzzled by. 

Then Professor Tom receives a letter that will be the catalyst for a major change in his life, and he is suddenly faced with how to deal with this new challenge and his wife. Add to this quirky mix, Marjory's mother, Agnes, who moves in with Tom and her daughter to help care for her; Henry, who comes to live with Tom claiming to be his son, complete with birth certificate; and Russell, Tom's friend who really believes he is Henry's dad and SMALL BLESSINGS shows why it is a very different sort of a romantic tale. 

The lives of all these characters and more are woven together expertly by Martha Woodruff who adds just enough twists and turns to tantalize readers and entertain at the same time. SMALL BLESSINGS is a breath of fresh air among the more serious, thriller mysteries I normally tend to gravitate to. A sheer delight...especially with the audio book being read by Lorelei King! You won't be disappointed!

GIVEAWAY

 THANKS TO ESTHER AND THE FINE FOLKS AT

MACMILLAN AUDIO, I HAVE ONE COPY

OF THIS DELIGHTFUL AUDIO BOOK TO 

GIVE AWAY TO ONE LUCKY WINNER!

  

--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES, PLEASE
--INCLUDE EMAIL ADDRESS IN COMMENT
--ALL ENTRIES/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 SMALL BLESSINGS 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 FIND INTERESTING ON MARTHA WOODROOF'S WEBSITE BY GOING 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, SEPTEMBER 14

GOOD LUCK!