Tag Archives: TLC Book Tours

Review: The Good Luck of Right Now, by Matthew Quick

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About the book, The Good Luck of Right Now

The Good Luck of Right Now

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper (February 11, 2014)

Call it fate
Call it synchronicity
Call it an act of God
Call it . . . The Good Luck of Right Now

For thirty-eight years, Bartholomew Neil has lived with his mother. When she gets sick and dies, he has no idea how to be on his own. His redheaded grief counselor, Wendy, says he needs to find his flock and leave the nest. But how does a man whose whole life has been grounded in his mom, Saturday Mass, and the library learn how to fly?

Bartholomew thinks he’s found a clue when he discovers a “Free Tibet” letter from Richard Gere hidden in his mother’s underwear drawer. In her final days, Mom called him Richard—there must be a cosmic connection. Believing that the actor is meant to help him, Bartholomew awkwardly starts his new life by writing Richard Gere a series of letters. Jung and the Dalai Lama, philosophy and faith, alien abduction and cat telepathy, the Catholic Church and the mystery of women, are all explored in his soul-baring epistles. But mostly the letters reveal one man’s heartbreakingly earnest attempt to assemble a family of his own.

A struggling priest, a “Girlbrarian,” her feline-loving, foulmouthed brother, and the spirit of Richard Gere join the quest to help Bartholomew. In a rented Ford Focus, they travel to Canada to see the Cat Parliament and find Bartholomew’s biological father . . . and discover so much more.

Buy a copy

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About the author, Matthew Quick

Matthew Quick

Matthew Quick is the author of The Silver Linings Playbook, which was made into an Academy Award-winning film, and the young adult novels Sorta Like a Rock Star, Boy21, and Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock. He is married to the novelist-pianist Alicia Bessette.

Connect with Matthew:

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

This review is really late, not because I wasn’t finished with the book (I was!) but because as I sat down to write it this morning, canine chaos erupted in my back yard. (My foster-dog had pinned my year-old rottie mix to the ground and was chewing on his flank, then my pointer mix tried to pull her off of him by biting her face. Blood and fur and yelping animals everywhere. NOT an auspicious start to the morning.) So, if this seems a bit disjointed, well, I’m sorry.

I haven’t read (or seen) The Silver Linings Playbook, so I don’t know if The Good Luck of Right Now is written in Matthew Quick’s typical style or not, but I liked the convention of an epistolary novel formed by letters to Richard Gere. It was quirky and innovative and when the book addressed some darker issues, that convention kept things from becoming unrelentingly grim.

I also really liked the characters – Bartholomew seems basically affable and sweet, if obviously not-quite-neurotypical. Father McNamee was a solid presence and the “Girlbrarian” was just amazing (as was her brother).

Having lived through my grandmother’s dementia, I could relate, especially, to those moments when Bartholomew’s mother forgot who he was, or insisted he was Richard Gere. In fact, those scenes played nicely against the eventual road trip to Canada, and the very sweet developing relationship between Bartholomew and Elizabeth.

Bottom line? This novel defies convention, but it’s all the more compelling for doing so, and I’m really glad I read it.

Goes well with Enchilada pie and a tossed salad..

TLC Book Tours

Review: The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein

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About the book, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment

The Gods of Heavenly Punishment

One summer night in prewar Japan, eleven-year-old Billy Reynolds takes snapshots at his parent’s dinner party. That same evening his father Anton–a prominent American architect–begins a torrid affair with the wife of his master carpenter. A world away in New York, Cameron Richards rides a Ferris Wheel with his sweetheart and dreams about flying a plane. Though seemingly disparate moments, they will all draw together to shape the fate of a young girl caught in the midst of one of WWII’s most horrific events–the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo.

Exquisitely-rendered, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment tells the stories of families on both sides of the Pacific: their loves and infidelities, their dreams and losses–and their shared connection to one of the most devastating acts of war in human history.

Buy a copy:

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About the author, Jennifer Cody Epstein

Jennifer Cody Epstein

Jennifer Cody Epstein is the author of The Gods of Heavenly Punishment and the international bestseller The Painter from Shanghai. She has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Self, Mademoiselle and NBC, and has worked in Hong Kong, Japan and Bangkok, Thailand.

Jennifer lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, two daughters and especially needy Springer Spaniel.

Connect with Jennifer

Website | Facebook

My Thoughts

While I’m not typically a fan of historical fiction, I make exceptions for recent history. The recent acquisition of a scrapbook my grandfather made when he was stationed in Hawaii in the 1930s had sparked my interest in the period just before and during World War II, and when I was offered The Gods of Heavenly Punishment to read and review, it seemed like a sign, especially since so much of the literature about that period is so Eurocentric.

This book, however, is a refreshing change from the usual, both because of the subject, and because it tells such an earthy, gritty, human story. We meet three boys in different parts of the world, and we revisit them during their lives, as tragedy occurs, finally saying goodbye to the last of them as a grown man.

We meet the girls and women who dance in and out of the boys’ lives, and they are as dimensional, as fully-realized as any lead characters in any work, despite not being on ‘center stage.

Even though we know the bare facts of history, there are thousands of stories, some separate, some interconnected, and Epstein weaves her fiction into the historical context with deftness and grace. From the opening chapters – a boy kissing a girl on a Ferris wheel, another boy snapping pictures with his brand new camera – to the closing ones – a man confronting the truth of his fathers actions toward another, a woman seeing treasured photos of her parents – we are treated to beautiful human moments that pull us away from the brutal atrocities of war.

I won’t pretend that some aspects of The Gods of Heavenly Punishment aren’t difficult. They are, and they should be. War isn’t clean and pretty. War stories shouldn’t be either.

But the book is still hauntingly beautiful and achingly poignant, and I found myself emerging from it with a deeper sense of history.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a virtual book tour. For more information, visit the tour page by clicking here.

Review: Ripper by Isabel Allende

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About the book, Ripper

Ripper

The Jackson women, Indiana and Amanda, have always had each other. Though their bond is strong, mother and daughter are as different as night and day. Indiana, a beautiful holistic healer, is a free-spirited bohemian. Long divorced from Amanda’s father, she’s reluctant to settle down with either of the men who want her—Alan, the wealthy scion of one of San Francisco’s elite families, and Ryan, an enigmatic, scarred former Navy SEAL.

While her mom looks for the good in people, Amanda is fascinated by the dark side of human nature—as is her father, the SF PD’s deputy chief of homicide. Brilliant and introverted, the MIT-bound high school senior Amanda is a natural-born sleuth addicted to crime novels and to Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world.

When a string of strange murders occurs across the city, Amanda plunges into her own investigation, probing hints and deductions that elude the police department. But the case becomes all too personal when Indiana suddenly vanishes. Could her mother’s disappearance have something to do with the series of deaths? Now, with her mother’s life on the line, Amanda must solve the most complex mystery she’s ever faced before it’s too late.

Purchase a copy:

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About the author, Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende

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.

Connect with Isabel:

Website | Facebook

My Thoughts:

More than twenty years ago, I met my husband online. Specifically, I met him on a MUSH (it stands for “multi-user shared hallucination” and it refers to an online, real-time, text-based role-playing environment), which is a sort of online game. It is this experience, with the way our online and offline lives bleed into each other that made me really, really want to read the latest offering from Isabel Allende: Ripper.

If you’ve ever read Allende’s work, you know that she has this amazing way of using language that is both descriptive and immersive and amazingly lyrical, even when she’s talking about a man who was skewered by a baseball bat (which is a sight we’re treated to in the opening chapters). Ripper is no different than her other work in that respect.

But here’s where it is different: It rides the line between Young Adult/New Adult and Contemporary fiction. It’s a mystery/thriller but it’s also a family drama, a love story, and a coming of age tale. And did I mention there’s role-playing.

Of course, no matter what we’re reading, we read it through the veil of our own experiences. While my history with gaming drew me to the story, what kept me intrigued was the relationship between Amanda and her grandfather, Blake. Why? Because I was the favorite of my own grandfather, and the relationship Allende drew in Ripper resonated with me very strongly.

There are many reasons to pick up this novel. Pick it up because you like free-spirited women who care about their daughters despite having virtually nothing in common with them. Pick it up because you or someone you know has been involved in a computer game – even if it’s one of those tacky first-person shooter MMORPGs that all the kids are playing. Pick it up because you know Allende’s work and want to have the comprehensive Allende experience. You can even pick it up because you’re intrigued by the title over a picture of the Golden Gate bridge. It really doesn’t matter why you read it.

What matters is that you do, because it’s a wonderful story, and you will not be disappointed.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a virtual book tour. For the tour page, click here.

Review: Last Train to Paris by Michele Zackheim

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About the book, Last Train to Paris

Last-Train-to-Paris-192x300

Inspired by the story of a distant cousin who was murdered in Paris in 1937, award-winning author Michele Zackheim’s Last Train to Paris is a gripping epic about a half-Jewish female reporter from Nevada who writes for the Paris Courier in the 1930’s. The sole woman in the newsroom, she lives with both sexism and anti-Semitism. Then she meets Leo, a German radical and anti-Nazi and realizes that while Paris is interesting, the truly vital historical story is taking place across the border. Rose undertakes an assignment in the Berlin press office, where she is initially happy and in love until Kristallnacht and the growing threat of Nazism. When World War II is declared, Americans are forced to leave the country and Rose must make an agonizing choice: Who will go with her on the last train to Paris?

Zackheim, acclaimed author of Einstein’s Daughter, tells her story from vantage point of Rose as an elderly woman, Last Train to Paris is at once a historical epic, a love story, and a psychological portrait of one woman’s gradual discovery of who she really is after years of being invisible to herself.

Last Train to Paris will enthrall the same large audience that made In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson and Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky bestsellers.

Buy a copy

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About the author, Michele Zackheim

Michele Zackheim

Michele Zackheim is the author of four books.

Born in Reno, Nevada she grew up in Compton, California. For many years she worked in the visual arts as a fresco muralist, an installation artist, print-maker, and a painter. Her work has been widely exhibited and is included in the permanent collections of The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.; The Albuquerque Museum; The Grey Art Gallery of New York University; The New York Public Library; The Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum, and The Carlsbad Museum of Art.

She has been the recipient of two NEA awards, and teaches Creative Writing from a Visual Perspective at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her first book, Violette’s Embrace, was published by Riverhead Books. That book is a fictional biography of the French writer Violette Leduc. Her second book, the acclaimed Einstein’s Daughter: The Search for Lieserl (Penguin Putnam, 1999), is a non-fiction account of the mystery of the lost illegitimate daughter of Mileva and Albert Einstein. Broken Colors (Europa Editions, 2007) is the story of an artist, whose life takes her to a place where life and art intersect. Her fourth novel, Last Train to Paris, will be published in January 2014. Zackheim lives in New York City.

Connect with Michele

Website | Facebook

My Thoughts

When it comes to armchair traveling, one of my most frequent destinations is France (in general) and Paris (specifically). Outside of my imagination, I’ve never spent much time in Paris, as most of my trips to France take me to places like Montpelier, Bezier, and Carcassone. Like most people, especially those of us who love words, Paris holds a special place in my heart, and I’ll read almost anything that takes place there.

Michele Zackheim’s novel has only increased that love. Bookended by glimpses of the main character as an elderly woman, the novel takes us to the Paris of the late 1930’s, where the echoes of Hemingway’s footsteps still ring out, though they’re being slowly overtaken by the marching cadence of black-booted Nazis.

First in Paris, and later in Berlin, we get to witness history through R. B. Manon’s eyes, to an often-chilling result, but even before things get grim there are descriptions of people and places that simply sing. In the first few pages of Last Train to Paris, for example, Zackheim describes the hotel where R.B is living, and we meet a host of people who share common spaces with her. Some of them, we may never see again, and some go one to become important, but either way, I felt as if I could see the neighbor waving, smell the cabbage, hear the cacophony of life in crowded residential hotel in a crowded, bustling city.

If you, as I did, loved Midnight in Paris, or if you’ve ever, as I have, watched old movies and fantasized about being a foreign correspondent, then you simply must read Last Train to Paris. You will not regret it.

Goes well with espresso with a twist of lemon on the side, and a butter croissant.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour hosted by TLC Book Tours. For the tour page, click here.

Review: Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance, by Janice Gary

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Short Leash by Janice Gary

About the book, Short Leash

It’s hard to believe that a walk in the park can change a life – let alone two – but for Janice Gary and her dog Barney, that’s exactly what happened.

Gary relied on dogs to help her feel safe when walking on her own ever since being attacked on the streets of Berkeley as a young woman. This solution worked well for years until her canine companion passed on. Grieving, and without the benefit of a guardian, she encounters a stray Lab-Rottweiler puppy in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot and falls for his goofy smile and sweet nature. With his biscuit-sized paws, Barney promises to grow into her biggest protector yet. But fate intervenes when Barney is viciously attacked by another dog just before his first birthday. From that time on, he becomes dog-aggressive. Walking anywhere with Barney is difficult. But for Gary, walking without him is impossible.

It’s only when she risks taking him to a local park that both of their lives change forever. There, Janice faces her deepest fears and discovers the grace of the natural world, the power of love and the potency of her own strengths. And Barney no longer feels the need to attack other dogs. Beautifully written, Short Leash is a moving tale of love and loss, the journey of two broken souls finding their way toward wholeness.

Buy a copy of Short Leash

Buy from Amazon

Short Leash at Amazon.com

About the author, Janice Gary

Janice Gary

Janice Gary is the author of Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance, which was chosen as a “Groundbreaking memoir” by Independent Publisher and a New Pages “Editor’s Pick”. She is the recipient of the Christine White Award for Memoir and the Ames Award for Personal Essay. As a writing coach, she helps others writers find their unique voice and stories.

Connect with Janice:

Website
Facebook

My Thoughts

Not only do I have three dogs of my own (all rescue mutts), but I actually work in rescue as a shelter-pet evangelist and dog fosterer, so when I was offered the chance to read and review Janice Gary’s book, Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance, I leapt at the opportunity, even though it meant reading a pdf copy.

I’m glad I did, because Janice’s story is one that almost every woman can relate to. While I’ve never been attacked, I know the feeling of vulnerability that comes with being in a dark parking lot, a questionable part of town, the last car on the subway, and I have an active enough imagination that extrapolating what Ms. Gary must have felt is an easy reach for me. I have, however, had one of my dogs attacked, and while I was fortunate in that my own pet was mostly unharmed, I know the fear that comes in that moment when an animal in your care is threatened or injured.

As well, I know the safety that comes from having a big dog. My husband travels a lot, and I feel much more secure knowing that I have 80 pounds of pointer/boxer and 75 pounds of Catahoula/Rottie/Brittany/Aussie at my back should anything happen – and I live in a relatively safe neighborhood. Every dog owner, though, can relate to the canine litmus test: if my dog doesn’t like you, I’m probably better off avoiding you entirely.

But I digress.

Janice Gary tells her story – of being attacked, of losing her canine companion, and of finding a new best friend, and almost losing him, with both candor and finesse. When you read her words, you feel like she’s sitting across the table, sharing a coffee with you, and you want to reach out and hold her hand, or pet Barney’s great, big head.

Her first walk with him had me both shaking with concern and rooting for both human and dog to do well, and my investment in her story only grew the further I read.

This is a memoir, so there isn’t a plot to discuss, and you don’t get to criticize someone’s choices. Instead, I encourage everyone to read this book, because Short Leash is beautiful, heartfelt, and truly inspiring, without ever being insipid. And when you’ve finished reading it, go cuddle your own pups. Don’t have one? Adopt one. Big Black Dogs are the best playmates and walking companions anyone can have, and they’re always the last to be adopted.

Goes well with A cold coke and two hot dogs, one of which you share with your canine companion.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a virtual book tour hosted by TLC Book Tours. Click here for the tour page.

Review: The In-Between Hour, by Barbara Claypole White

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About the author, Barbara Claypole White

Barbara Claypole White

Barbara Claypole White writes and gardens in the forests of North Carolina. English born and educated, she’s married to an internationally-acclaimed academic. Their son, an award-winning poet / musician, attends college in the Midwest. His battles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have inspired her to write love stories about damaged people. The Unfinished Garden, Barbara’s debut novel, won the 2013 Golden Quill for Best First Book. The In-Between Hour is her second novel.

Connect with Barbara

Website
Facebook
Twitter

My Thoughts

“Hannah sank down in front of him and eased his head onto her chest. In the distance, bottles and cans clunked into the recycling truck. Their world was imploding, and it was recycling day.”
~Barbara Claypole White, The In-Between Hour

That paragraph, from near the end of The In-Between Hour (but no spoilers, I promise), is one of the perfect human moments that made me fall in love with Barbara Claypole White’s second novel. She has these moments all through the story, and every time, they make me nod or smile, not necessarily because they’re funny, but because they come from a place of truth.

I confess I was a bit leery when I realized this was technically a Harlequin novel. Okay, it’s Harlequin/MIRA, but still…they do have a reputation for being more than a little bit, well, fluffy.

But In-Between Hour, while a romance, is anything but fluffy.

Instead, it’s a lovingly constructed glimpse at a man grieving for his lost child and coping with a father who is showing signs of either Alzheimer’s or dementia, and a woman who gives as much time and energy to saving animals as she does to caring for her (adult) children, one of whom is quite broken. It’s also the story of an aging father trying to save his memories of love and loss while still being a parent (because you never quite stop) and another woman, who is a friend to all but doesn’t always love herself as much as she should.

It’s a story about real hearts, all of which are slightly cracked or dented, as happens in this journey we call life, and it’s a story about how if we’re supremely lucky we can find a person – or people – whose damage doesn’t clash too much with our own.

Author White handles everything with finesse and an attention to detail that is both elegant and entrancing. Her dialogue feels real, and her characters feel like people you might encounter – funny, flawed and fabulously three-dimensional.

I like that she sets up a possible “perfect ending,” but leaves things loose enough that free will still plays a part, and I like that all of her characters have their own intelligence, even though some of them aren’t necessarily well-educated.

Most of all, though, I liked that even though this was a conventional romance in many ways, The In-Between Hour was unconventional enough to keep me interested from the first page to the last.

Goes well with coffee with a touch of egg nog instead of cream, and chocolate gingerbread with candycane frosting.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a virtual book tour. Click HERE to visit the tour page and see the list of stops.

Review: Perfect by Rachel Joyce

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About the author, Rachel Joyce

Rachel Joyce

Rachel Joyce is the author of the international bestseller The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. She is also the award-winning writer of more than twenty plays for BBC Radio 4.

She started writing after a twenty-year acting career, in which she performed leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and won multiple awards. Rachel Joyce lives with her family on a Gloucestershire farm.

Connect with Rachel

Website: Rachel Joyce Books
Facebook: Rachel Joyce

My Thoughts

I love it when I go into a book thinking it will be one thing, only to discover it’s something else entirely. Perfect is just such a book.

On one level, it’s the story of two boys, Byron and James, and how they influence each other, especially in regard to their reactions after Byron’s mother is involved in an accident, told in alternating chapters with the story of a man named Jim, who uses his OCD to protect the world from the bad things he feels he causes, and how those two timelines eventually converge. But it’s also a story about time and youth, love and maturity, and how close each of us really is to the “insanity” side of the mental health spectrum.

Joyce’s voice for the chapters that focus on the boys and Byron’s mother takes on the quality of a fairy-tale or fable. Everything is wrapped in gauze and seen through the soft-focus filter of memory. Jim’s chapters, though, are told in crisp HD clarity, an interesting juxtaposition with the cloudiness of Jim’s mental state.

Having finished reading Perfect over the weekend, and taking a day to digest it before posting this review, I’m left feeling like I’ve read the most profound novel ever, and at the same time, like I didn’t quite get everything the author was hoping the reader would perceive.

Is it a good story? Yes. Would I recommend it? Yes.

On the other hand, I’m not sure I liked all – or any – of the individual characters. I know I wanted to slug Byron’s father a lot, and wanted to shake some sense into his mother.

But you don’t have to LIKE the characters to enjoy the experience of reading a novel, and after everything, I find that I did enjoy Rachel Joyce’s novel, because it made me see things like sanity and stability a little differently.

I already knew that no one is “perfect,” but this made me realize how many people still try to be.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour hosted by TLC Book Tours. To see the entire schedule of tour stops, visit this link: Book Tour for Perfect, by Rachel Joyce

Review: The Howling Heart by April Bostic

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About the book, The Howling Heart

The Howling Heart

Paige Donovan is an ambitious college graduate who aspires to reach the top of the corporate ladder. She’s climbing fast when she’s given the promotion of a lifetime at a prestigious fashion magazine in New York City. Her bright future comes to an unexpected halt after news of her father’s death. She inherits his old cabin in the Colorado Rockies, and just when she thinks her luck couldn’t get any worse, she has a car accident in the mountains and awakens in the small, remote community of Black River.

Soon, she’s engulfed in the mystical world of Varulv–wolves descended from 13th century Scandinavia and blessed by Norse gods with the ability to appear human. Paige is desperate to return home, but she never expects to fall for her rescuer, Riley Gray, a charming young werewolf from England who offers her an alternate future with his pack.

Now, she must choose between the career she’s always wanted and the love she’s always dreamed.

Buy a copy from

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About the author, April Bostic

April Bostic is a New Jersey-based, Adult Romance author who enjoys unleashing her creativity and letting her imagination run wild. Her love of romance books inspired her to become not just a reader, but also a writer. In December 2008, she self-published her first novel, a contemporary romance with a supernatural twist entitled A Rose to the Fallen.

Her first short story, “Right Here, Right Now,” released in January 2012, is an erotic romance with a dash of S&M. The following year, she released two more short stories: a romantic urban fantasy inspired by the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche entitled “Eros, My Love”, and a sexy romantic comedy entitled “Love Addiction.”

After five years, she released her second novel, The Howling Heart in August 2013, a paranormal romance that delves into the mystical world of werewolves and Norse gods. To end her busiest year in publishing, April will release her fourth short story in December 2013, an 18th century paranormal romance entitled “A Dark Scandal.”

Connect with April

Website: AprilBostic.com
Goodreads: April Bostic

My Thoughts

Having spent several of my formative years in small towns in the Colorado Rockies, I had absolutely no trouble accepting that there could be a town that wasn’t easy to find, harboring a community of people who aren’t werewolves, except when they are. Actually, about the only thing that really challenged my willing suspense of disbelief in regard to The Howling Heart was that Paige could be working at Elle and getting a fat promotion so soon after college. (Kudos though, for making it Elle, I love Elle.)

But that’s a small quibble about a book that I otherwise found to be both engaging and enjoyable. As a reader, I might have questioned Paige’s choices, but when you’re young, grieving, and caught up in a combination of attraction and nostalgia, you don’t always make smart choices.

But I’m backing into this review, so let me start over:

April Bostic’s The Howling Heart gives us a new spin on werewolves. These aren’t blood-thirsty creatures out for a quick human-shaped snack, but people who live more in tune with the land, in a culture influenced by Norse mythology and shaped by the modern world. It’s an interesting juxtaposition – as the male lead/love interest Riley Gray points out – they eat spaghetti Bolognese when in human form, and take meals on the hoof when…not.

It’s also an interesting twist on the conventional romance novel tropes. Yes, Paige is young and has a career that doesn’t quite match her age, yes, Riley is hot-hot-hot and super-sensitive, but somehow it all works to create a magical bubble, a sort of wolfy Brigadoon surrounded by aspen and pine trees instead of heather.

The element of mystery – what did Paige’s father know, and when did he know it? – only adds to the story. Romance and mystery have always been compatible, however, so this should not be at all surprising.

Author Bostic write dialogue that doesn’t sound stilted, and puts enough flavor into her foreign-born characters that they don’t sound American but also don’t sound like caricatures. It’s a tough balance for any writer, but she’s nailed it.

Likewise, the supporting characters – Paige’s father, who dies before we really know him, Riley’s sister Quinn, and their father and stepmother – are all given lovely moments to show off their dimensions.

If you enjoy a good romantic romp, with a dash of supernatural spiciness, The Howling Heart is for you.

Goes well with a hearty bowl of venison stew and crusty brown bread, and a glass of hard cider.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour with TLC Book Tours. Click here for the list of tour stops.

Review: Ade’ by Rebecca Walker (giveaway copy available)

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About the Book, Ade’, a Love Story:

Ade, a Love Story

In Adé, a free-spirited American woman and a Swahili Muslim man fall in love on the exquisite island of Lamu, off the coast of Kenya. There, they create their own paradise: living in a traditional small white house and creating their private language of intimacy. After an intense courtship, Adé asks for Farida’s hand in marriage.

But when Adé and Farida are forced to leave the island in preparation for their wedding, Farida is faced by the unsettling and often violent realities of life on the mainland. And just as the Persian Gulf War begins, Farida succumbs to a disease that almost kills her, and alters her relationship with Adé forever.

A transcendent love story turned tale of survival, Adé explores what happens when one couple’s private idyll is interrupted by a world in the throes of massive upheaval.

Buy a copy at Amazon.

My Thoughts:

Magical. Lyrical. Haunting. Those are the three words that came to mind from the first page of my copy of Rebecca Walker’s amazing novel Ade’, a Love Story, and by the time I was just a few more pages into the story, I was already swept into the tide of Farida’s life – from college student to world traveler to lover, to, finally, just WOMAN, she seemed as real to me as many of my own friends. I could see her in my minds eye, asking local people in various desert countries to help her broaden her vocabulary, until their words felt like her own, and I could feel her thirst for connection and passion.

Her friend Miriam also reminded me of people I knew – still know – and while I can’t say that I disliked her, there were times when she annoyed me a little. “Stop trying so hard,” I’d tell the version of her in my imagination. But then I’d remember my own feelings of being an outsider.

Ade’, the title character himself, was also very real to me, but I saw him in soft-focus, through Farida’s eyes. Maybe it helps that my mother dated an Iranian man when I was a toddler (my father was never in the picture) or that I grew up in a diverse group of people from many different cultures, but I could almost hear his accent, his speech patterns – almost smell this skin.

It’s no secret that I read in the bath a lot. Even though my copy of Ade’ was a digital copy, and an uncorrected proof version at that, courtesy of TLC Book Tours and NetGalley, I took my Kindle into the bath with me to read this novel, and didn’t come out til the water was ice cold and my fingers and toes totally pruney. Why? Because this book is THAT entrancing. The language, the settings, the characters – all so vivid and so real.

Rebecca Walker, I know from her bio, writes for Marie Claire so it’s possible that I’ve read some of her stuff without knowing it, as I’m a long-time subscriber to that magazine. At times her voice seemed incredibly familiar, and that only made me enjoy the book more.

Ade’ is a love story, and I am in love with Ade’ and with Ms. Walker’s writing. Brava!

Goes well with: falafel, sweet potato fries, and yellow lentil soup.

About the author, Rebecca Walker:

Rebecca Walker

Rebecca Walker is the author of the best-selling memoirs Black, White and Jewish and Baby Love, and editor of the anthology Black Cool. She is also the editor of the anthologies To Be Real, What Makes a Man, and One Big Happy Family. Her writing has appeared in Bookforum, Newsweek, Glamour, Marie Claire, The Washington Post, Vibe, and Interview, among many other publications, and she blogs regularly for The Root.

Connect with Rebecca Walker:

Website: Rebecca Walker
Twitter: @RebeccaWalker

The lovely people at TLC Book Tours have given me the opportunity to make a gift of this book. Leave a comment telling me about YOUR one true love, and you could get a copy of your own.

TLC Book Tours

Review: Gracious Living without Servants by Brenda Cronin

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About the book, Gracious Living Without Servants:

Gracious Living Without Servants

(From the back of the book) Juliet has done the right thing all her life, and where’s it gotten her? She’s a thirty-year-old widow who’s had to move in with her parents.

Things start to look up when her glamorous but married neighbor Seth seems to be flirting with her and helps her land a job at a local paper.

Then she’s assigned to investigate Seth’s wife. Juliet is quickly immersed in lies, manipulation, and a deepening sex scandal. But she feels alive for the first time in a long time.

Maybe she needs to do the wrong thing for once. Or maybe she s headed for disaster.

Buy a Copy from Amazon

About the author, Brenda Cronin:

Brenda Cronin

Brenda Cronin writes for The Wall Street Journal, where she has worked since 2001. Her short fiction has been published on both sides of the Atlantic. This is her first novel. Born in Washington, she was raised in Connecticut and lives in New York City.

My Thoughts:

I fell in love with the title of this novel, something you should never do, before it ever arrived at my door (thank you, TLC tours), and that was my first difficulty with this novel. Then, I had trouble settling into it to read. It wasn’t that it was poorly written – in fact Cronin’s prose is eminently readable – just that my own mood was tangled and dark. That was my second difficulty.

Nevertheless, after a couple of false starts, I found myself absorbed in the story of recent widow, Juliet, and her new life, which involves a longer-than-expected “temporary” return to her parents’ home in New Haven. I need to inerject here, that I have family – Yalies all – in that part of Connecticut, and Cronin got the flavor of their speech, and the unselfconscious (to the point of oblivion) self-entitlement of a certain class of people spot-on. Little things like Juliet’s use of the word “Mummy” with her mother, which otherwise would have read as British, instead placed us firmly in Connecticut’s upper-upper middle class.

While I enjoyed the story, however, and loved Gracious Living Without Servants, for the way the author crafted it, I found myself becoming frustrated with Juliet’s poor decision making. An affair with a married, older neighbor is one thing, but not discontinuing it when you’re assigned to investigate his wife isn’t something a thirty-year-old woman should make. Ditto the day-dreaming about a possible future with Seth – Juliet isn’t twenty. Shouldn’t she know that men of his ilk never leave their wives?

As much as her bad decision making frustrated me, however, I enjoyed the book for what it was. It takes courage, in our instant-gratification culture, to write a book that doesn’t wrap everything up in a neat bow. As well, I particularly liked the way Juliet’s deceased husband, Alex, was a character in his own right, even though he existed almost exclusively within her thoughts – Alex would approve, Alex might not agree, Alex would understand. It added dimension to Juliet’s character, as well as to the novel as a whole.

I feel compelled to add that I’m reading this with the experience of being 43 and having a marriage that is going on 19 years, and my own experience colors my reaction to this novel, but it’s well written and truly interesting.

Goes well with canopes and a glass of merlot.

TLC Book Tours

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this novel. Here are the rest of the tour stops for Gracious Living Without Servants:
Tuesday, October 15th: bookchickdi

Tuesday, October 22nd: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Wednesday, October 23rd: Bibliotica

Monday, October 28th: Book-alicious Mama

Wednesday, October 30th: Svetlana’s Reads and Views

Thursday, October 31st: A Simple Life, Really?

Tuesday, November 5th: Anita Loves Books

Thursday, November 7th: Brooklyn Berry Designs

Monday, November 11th: Amy’s Book-et List

Tuesday, November 12th: A Book Geek

Thursday, November 14th: Obsessed Italian Brat