IMM 12/12/10

I can't even list all the books I have lined up since I discovered Netgalley.com.  I'll just cover them as I read them.

Tangible books I got this week:

 

This week I will be reviewing:

 

and maybe

I will also be posting a new giveaway:

 

Have a fantastic holiday!

Denise Austen's Get Energy! Giveaway

With busy schedules, demanding careers, and little time, many of us battle just to stay awake. But energy is something that is in our control, enven when time is short. Now 50 years young, fitness guru Denise Austin shows readers how to super-charge their lives, using her innovative lifestyle plan. She eats the right foods at the right time of day. She uses the power of stretching and breathing to feed her body with energy-enhancing oxygen. She uses mini-workouts to get energy even on her busiest days--and now you can too!

Denise shows how simple changes can add up to increased energy levels throughout the day. From the foods they consume to the way they sit in their chairs, readers won't believe how Denise's quick and easy plan will dramatically increase their energy levels. In as little as a week, results will be felt: radiant skin, more restful sleep, and a sharper mind...so follow Denise Austin and prepare for a fitness wake-up call!

About Author Denise Austin:
A native of San Pedro, California, Denise Austin started gymnastics at the age of 12 and earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Arizona, graduating in 1979 with a Bachelor's degree in education with an emphasis in exercise physiology. She began her career teaching aerobic exercise classes in the Los Angeles area and went on to co-host the The Jack LaLanne Show, in 1981.
During more than 25 years promoting health and fitness, Denise has created 82 workout videos/DVDs. Her enormous number of sales led to her 2003 induction into the Video Hall of Fame.
Denise has been married for 25 years to Jeff Austin, a sports attorney and brother of tennis champ Tracy Austin. They share a home with their two teenage daughters, Kelly and Katie.

Visit Denise's WEBSITE.

Thanks to Anna at Hachette Books for allowing me to host this giveaway.

3 Followers of this blog will receive a copy of Get Energy by Denise Austin.

Entry rules:
Only residents of the U.S. or Canada are eligible to win.
No PO boxes, please.
Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule. If you win the same title in two or more contests, you will receive only one copy of the title. Books will be sent directly from the publisher.
Giveaway ends December 27, 2010

Thr3e by Ted Dekker

Thr3e by Ted Dekker

Enter a world where nothing is what it seems. Where your closest friend could be your greatest enemy.

Kevin Parson is driving his car late one summer day when, suddenly, his cell phone rings. A man who identifies himself as Slater speaks in a breathy voice: You have exactly three minutes to confess your sin to the world. Refuse, and the car you're driving will blow sky high.

Kevin panics. Who would make such a call? What sin? Kevin ditches the car. Precisely three minutes later, a massive explosion sets his world on a collision course with madness.

From the #1 best-selling fiction author comes a powerful story of good, evil, and all that lies between.

This is my first Ted Dekker book. Shocking, I know. He's been around and I've been around and we've never crossed paths. The interesting part about this book is that it's a psychological thriller. I'm usually pretty picky about my psycho thrillers because it irks me when the characters assigned to be "experts" in the field don't have a clue about what they're talking about.

For instance, "Sybil" is diagnosed with a horrific case of Multiple Personality Disorder which was appropriate because of the time. Today, a character diagnosed with said disorder would not be considered an expert since it has been removed from the diagnostic bible therapists use to categorize mental illness. And bill insurance companies.

So do I ruin the crux of this book? Maybe a little.

But first, a positive angle on a human psyche. When we experience trauma, we must move on. In order to move on, we choose to park that experience in a box and push it into the closet. Unhealthy people dissociate. Healthy people compartmentalize. Is it semantics? Or is it a fracture in our new reality?

Freud: Super - Ego, Ego, Id.

Transactional Analysis: Parent, Adult, Child.

Good/Evil: Man, angel on one shoulder, devil on another.

One of the characters in this book might or might not be having a nervous breakdown (not in the DSM-IV) and might be experiences DID (in the DSM-IV) as opposed to MPD (in the DSM-III). And the experts in the book are actually experts. Dekker has done his homework and creates either a true case of DID or casts enough doubt on the lucidity of the accused.

Me? I compartmentalize. What voices in my head?

The Good Sister Winners!

It's not that I forgot about it, it's just that it slipped my mind.  It's not like I have Alzheimer's, I just... I'm sorry, what was I saying?

And the winners are:

Heather

Laura

Debbie

Do a happy dance! 

Emails have been sent.

All You Get Is Me by Yvonne Prinz

All You Get Is Me by Yvonne Prinz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Things were complicated enough for Roar, even before her father decided to yank her out of the city and go organic. Suddenly, she’s a farm girl, albeit a reluctant one, selling figs at the farmers’ market and developing her photographs in a ramshackle shed. Caught between a troublemaking sidekick named Storm, a brooding, easy-on-the-eyes L.A. boy, and a father on a human rights crusade that challenges the fabric of the farm community, Roar is going to have to tackle it all—even with dirt under her fingernails and her hair pulled back with a rubber band meant for asparagus.

My Take: I was surprised at how much I liked this book. The book has an agenda. Aurora is a witness to a fatal car accident which is caused by a suburbanite - a woman with fake boobs who is part of a development eating up the farmland - killing an illegal immigrant. To add tear-power to the story, the illegal immigrant has a heart-broken husband and a baby who survives the accident. Aurora's dad happens to be a human rights lawyer and wants justice. Just when you think the story can't get any cornier, enter the suburbanite's handsome teenage son just to sully the waters.

So we have a book with an agenda which I abhor, characters who seem to lack depth (fake boobs and all and evil developer) and teenage behavior that, as a mother, I do not condone. So why did I like it? I don't know!

Deconstruct: Some of the characters develop different dimensions. They become much more likeable and the court case ends the way it would in real life. The dialogue was fun (cue Storm), the protagonist and the protagonists' love interest (who is NOT brooding, thank goodness) developed a relationship over time spent together. It was rather sweet and reminded me a little of my own teenage summer romances. The teenager buried deep related to the relationships and the insecurities.

Just to clarify, the mother in me did not find a lot of behavior I am against. Overall, Aurora is a model teenager. There's just that one thing, one time. Is it sex, drugs, rock and roll? I'll tell you if you ask me. I won't ruin it here.

The Dressmaker Review

Set in 1850s London, at the height of Victoria's reign, Posie Graeme-Evans' glorious fourth historical novel tells of a woman ahead of her time. Ellen Gowan is a famous dress designer for ladies of high society and one of the very few women in England who owns her own business. But her life wasn't always one of such privilege.

The only surviving daughter of a Cambridge scholar-turned village minister and a beautiful woman who was disowned by her family for marrying for love, Ellen had a childhood plentiful in affection, if not in currency and dresses made of fine silks. Tragedy strikes on her thirteenth birthday, when her father dies suddenly, leaving Ellen and her mother penniless and dependent upon the kindness of her mother's estranged family.

Life takes Ellen down various roads of opulence and depravity until she lands in the arms of the devlishly handsome Raoul de Valentin, whom she marries. Just when Ellen realizes that she is with child, Raoul abandons her. Determined to survive, she begins her long climb to success, first by toiling at a dress factory, then opening up her own salon in the fashionable Battle Square.

Years pass, and Ellen has evolved into Madame Gowan, dress maker to royalty and the Great Six Hundred. All is truly well, until the day Raoul de Valentin unexpectedly arrives at her doorstep once more, threatening to destroy all that she has achieved.

The Dressmaker is a romantic odyssey that takes readers into the most luxurious of ballrooms and the most squalid of brothels. It is the sweeping story of a true heroine and her quest to live life fully-to find success, love, and to find herself in an era when such ideas were unheard of for a woman. Brimming with romance, social intrigue and rich, detailed illustrations of Victorian London and its varied inhabitants, he Dressmaker will captivate readers.

My Take:  This took me a few chapter to get into but when I did, I was swept up into Victorian England.  Just to clarify, it isn't a pretty sight.  Poverty is something to be truly feared, as the women of this time period well know.

I hesitate to call it a story because it trivializes what the author has accomplished.  She has created the life of Ellen Gowan during an oppressive time period for women.  She intricately weaves aspects into the book to create a believable protagonist who faces the difficulties of class and money within and without society.

The book consists of 3 parts; Ellen's latency including her 13th birthday where tragedy strikes, up to age 15.  Part II is Ellen's coming of age.  Again, not pretty.  More death and sorrow, marriage, pregnancy, destitution, lasting friendship, and survival.  Part III is Ellen's success story intertwined with the continuation of earlier stories from Parts I and II.

What is striking about this book, besides the fact that the author brings a character to life, is the way the story unfolds and shows the reader the real challenges of Victorian England when one is not affluent or cleverly dishonest.  This book is Pride and Prejudice if the Bennetts had no money or estate and Mr. Darcy never arrived.  Yet for all the grit, this is not a sad tale.  Ellen is not a victim even though her circumstances merit the title.  She is also not a heroine who unrealistically rises above it all.  She is a woman who finds herself despite circumstances beyond her control.  She is a woman who discovers lasting friendship from other women who suffer differently than herself.  She is a woman who creates happiness.

IMM 12/5/10

Happy Birthday to my 47 27 year old SISTER!

Suddenly, I feel so young and vibrant.

Must be payback.  It's exhilarating! (Kisses, Suzy).

In my mailbox meme, courtesy of The Story Siren is going to be written before I fall asleep at the computer.

This week I finished:
 

New books this week include:



To be reviewed this week:

and a surprise. Why a surprise? Because I am too tired to decide. G'night!

Sapphique by Catherine Fisher Review

Title:  Sapphique
Genre:  YA
Pages:  464
Source:  ARC (Publisher)
Date of Release:  December 28, 2010

Finn has escaped from the terrible living Prison of Incarceron, but its memory torments him, because his brother Keiro is still inside. Outside, Claudia insists he must be king, but Finn doubts even his own identity. Is he the lost prince Giles? Or are his memories no more than another construct of his imprisonment? And can you be free if your friends are still captive? Can you be free if your world is frozen in time? Can you be free if you don't even know who you are? Inside Incarceron, has the crazy sorcerer Rix really found the Glove of Sapphique, the only man the Prison ever loved. 
Sapphique, whose image fires Incarceron with the desire to escape its own nature. If Keiro steals the glove, will he bring destruction to the world? Inside. Outside. All seeking freedom. Like Sapphique.

My Take: Part of the problem of being a Book Babe is I completely shatter all illusions that I have a life.  But I do.  That said, I will now make my comparisons because I do spent way too much time with my nose in a book. 

Sapphique is the legendary prisoner who escaped from Alcatraz  the Prison.  At this point we believe that the problem with escaping is not so much finding the exit or using a key but logistics prohibits easy movement.  Again, I am brought to "A Wrinkle in Time" which I totally did not get.  There's a 5th dimension of travel but it is, essentially, the Theory of Relativity and Star Trek's time and space continuum.  Kind of like Miss Frizzle and her Magic School Bus. Incarceron is a prison that may be as tiny as a cube on a keychain or may be something else.  It is not, however, as simple as going down some stairs to the center of the earth.   

Once again, two worlds exist within the book and two stories are constantly being told.  The conflicts are continuous and the Prison world just does not let up.  Those who are still there simply can not catch a break.  Incidently, now that Giles/Finn is Outside, there is a new contender to be king and I just don't know who the good guys or the bad guys are, anymore.

What this book really brought to my attention is how nebulous my truth and reality may be.  Maybe we are simply a tiny dot in a solar system inside a marble hanging from a cat's collar in a much bigger world.  Maybe my truth is only a fairy tale told in a galaxy far, far away.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Title: Incarceron

Genre: Young Adult 

Pages: 448 pages 

Source: Scholastic Book Order

Incarceron -- a futuristic prison, sealed from view, where the descendants of the original prisoners live in a dark world torn by rivalry and savagery. It is a terrifying mix of high technology -- a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber -- chains, great halls, dungeons. A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here. In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form of prison -- a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage she dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists. But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside, simultaneously find a device -- a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn's escape is born ... 

My Take: Catherine Fisher does what few authors have ever done in a Dystopic novel; created two worlds simultaneously.  The background is still a little fuzzy but apparently, the world got too complicated with so much change going on.  Huge war fought and time was frozen.  Actually, a group of old guys got together and chose a time period and commanded everybody to stay in that time period in word, dress, technology, and everything else.  Except for the privileged, of course.  There is wiggle room for staying young, beautiful, and going potty.  I mean hygiene. 

 Meanwhile, another world exists in a different place.  These are descendants of the first world (I think) but it is not so pretty.  There is no cheating with technology since it doesn't exist.  Or toilets that I could see.  It is a prison where everybody is trapped.  Nobody escapes.  Except there is a legend of a man named Saphique who did escape.  But the prison has become sentient and will not allow happiness nor escape. Of course, every sentient being has an Achilles Heel.   

Just so you know, mine is Diet Coke and chocolate. 

Claudia - outside in the Realm.  Finn - Inside the prison.  Finn believes he is from the outside.  Claudia needs an escape and believes that Finn is the long lost prince.  Claudia has a scary father who is the acting warden of the prison.  Finn wants Out.  Claudia wants him Out.  Prison wants him In.  Where is the portal?  Queen Meanie (Sia) wants her son to be king and not Finn or whoever he is. 

This is more fantasy than the usual distopia but imagination abounds!  Story is original with many shades of Wrinkle in Time and a little bit of Harry Potter type action. 

The Pirate Queen by Patricia Hickaman

 

This is a story about life and death; marriage and infidelity; repentance and forgiveness; fidelity and redemption. This is a book that someone who enjoys the play "Our Town" will eat up. I am not one of those people.

It's a book about life. Saphora lives her life under a facade of perfection, taking care of everybody around her. The one day she finally decides to leave her philandering husband, he announces he is dying. Ironically, he chooses to spend his last days at the house she intended to isolate herself while she licked her own wounds.

Bender is a self-centered doctor with a God complex. During his illness, he discovers his own frailty and humanity. He finds God and pleads forgiveness for his sins against Saphora. The children gather and family dynamics play out, as they tend to do during times of crisis, although I thought the sibling dynamics could have used more drama to be more realistic. Maybe that's just my family. That's just sad.

The added twist is Tobias, a boy afflicted with the AIDS virus. He adds a different dimension to the story yet I found it pretty predictable. Most of the characters seemed to be predictable and, besides Saphora, underdeveloped. It was really Saphora's life story.

What I liked, though, was the introduction to each chapter. A quote used to tidily sum up life's purpose and overcoming storms.

Chapter 6: "I am not afraid of storms; for I'm learning how to sail my ship." - Louisa May Alcott.

Chapter 11: "And what guarantee have we that the future will be any better if we neglect the present? Can one solve world problems when one is unable to solve one's own? Where have we arrived in this process? Have we been successful, working at the periphery of the circle and not at the center?" - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, *Gift from the Sea*

Like my own life, I teared up at the sad parts. Unlike life, I found the coincidences unrealistic.

Writing style is just fine. Story is just fine. The way it touched me was just marginal.

Swan Thieves Giveaway

Andrew Marlow, a psychiatrist, has a perfectly ordered life--solitary, perhaps, but full of devotion to his profession and the painting hobby he loves. This order is destroyed when the renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes Marlow's patient.


When Oliver refuses to talk or cooperate, Marlow finds himself going beyond his own legal and ethical boundaries to understand the secret that torments this silent genius, a journey that will lead him into the lives of the women closest to Robert Oliver and toward a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism.

Moving from American museums to the coast of Normandy, from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth, from young love to last love, THE SWAN THIEVES is a story of obsession, the losses of history, and the power of art to preserve human hope.

Reading Group Guide


1. At the beginning of Chapter 2, psychiatrist Andrew Marlow confesses that the story he is going to tell is “not only private but subject to my imagination as much as to the facts.” In what ways does this prove to be true, in the course of the book? How does Marlow’s imagination affect the telling of his own story?

2. Each of the artists in the book—Robert, Marlow, Mary, Kate, Béatrice, and Olivieris faced with choices between art and personal life. What are some of these dilemmas, and how does each character resolve or at least experience them?

3. In Chapter 64, at their painting conference in Maine, Mary says to Robert, “‘I have the feeling that if I knew why you were still painting the same thing after so many years, then I would know you. I would know who you are.” Why does Robert paint Béatrice for years and how does his obsession with her shape his artwork? What other obsessions appear in the course of the book, in Robert and in other characters?

4. Landscapes play an important role in The Swan Thieves, both in life and on canvas. What are the major landscapes of the book, and what effect do they have on the characters?

5. In Chapter 95, just before Marlow flies to Paris to learn more about Béatrice de Clerval, Mary tells him, ‘Please just let her die properly, the poor woman.’ What does she mean by this? Why is it important to her?

6. The Swan Thieves is partly a study of love that bridges gaps across time and age—passion, mentoring, parenting. Which characters have these relationships? What do the old, or older, characters have to offer the younger ones? What do the younger ones offer their elders?

7. At many points in the story, artists paint or sketch one another. What are these occasions and how is each significant to the story?

8. In Étretat, as she considers her relationship with Olivier, Béatrice realizes that whatever happens between them “she must effect herself and live with later.” Is this true of other characters’ experiences? In what senses?

9. The myth of Leda and the Swan surfaces repeatedly in the narrative. Where do we encounter it and what is its significance in each of the main characters’ lives? What other swans make an appearance in the book?

10. Kate says of her second meeting with Robert Oliver, “His apparent unawareness of himself was mesmerizing.” What else mesmerizes other people about Robert? Why do some of the other characters find him compelling?

11. On leaving the National Gallery at the end of Chapter 7, Marlow notes “that mingled relief and disappointment one feels on departure from a great museum—relief at being returned to the familiar, less intense, more manageable world, and disappointment at that world’s lack of mystery.” What museums appear in the novel? Is Marlow’s craving for mystery ultimately satisfied by museums or by “the world,” and in what ways?

Three copies
U.S. and Canada
Ends December 17th

Sundays at Tiffany's Giveaway

AN IMAGINARY FRIEND


Jane Margaux is a lonely little girl. Her mother, the powerful head of a New York theater company, makes time for her only once a week, for their Sunday trip to admire jewelry at Tiffany's. Jane has only one friend: a handsome, comforting, funny man named Michael. He's perfect. But only she can see him. Michael can't stay forever, though. On Jane's eighth birthday he leaves, promising that she'll forget him soon. He was there to help her until she was old enough to manage on her own, and now there are other children who need his help.

AN UNEXPECTED LOVE

Years later, in her thirties, Jane is just as alone as she was as a child. And despite her own success as a playwright, she is even more trapped by her overbearing mother. Then she meets Michael again--as handsome, smart and perfect as she remembers him to be. But not even Michael knows the reason they've really been reunited.

AND AN UNFORGETTABLE TWIST

Sundays at Tiffany's is a heart-wrenching love story that surpasses all expectations of why these people have been brought together. With the breathtaking momentum and gripping emotional twists that have made James Patterson a bestseller all over the world, Sundays at Tiffany's takes an altogether fresh look at the timeless and transforming power of love.

I have one copy for a giveaway!  Ends December 12th

U.S. and Canada

No post office boxes

Nightingale by Susan May Warren Review and Contest

From Amazon:  *PLEASE READ* Wolfgang Jager has found himself on the wrong side of a world war. Esther Lange is trapped inside a war of her own. Can loving their enemies set them both free?  Wolfgang Jager grew up in Mason City, Iowa. So, what’s he doing fighting for the Germans? If only his parents hadn’t moved back to their native Germany when they believed Hitler to be a hero. It’s almost a relief when he is captured by the Americans and sent to a Wisconsin POW camp. When the darkness turns to nightmare and Wolfgang is accused of murder, can he stand firm in his faith - and snatch the woman he loves out of the mouths of lions? 

My Take:  Susan, THANK YOU SO MUCH for not naming the main love interest WOLFGANG.  I would never be able to envision him as anybody but Wolfman Jack.  It's ingrained.  

Okay, so the story remains the same but the the love interest is given the name of Peter.  Thank you!  Esther is a good woman who made a stupid mistake three years ago.  Now Esther is mommy of little girl.  She's been cut off by her parents and is now trapped at the boy's parents' home until (if) he comes home from the war.  That's WWII.  Out of obligation, everybody's expecting a marriage.  It's the honorable thing to do.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Esther gets a letter from Peter, a soldier in Wisconsin.  Peter was a medic who found Linus in the mud and guts and tried to patch him back together.  In the dank and sorry trenches, Linus gives Peter a letter (THE letter) to send to Esther.  Peter does.  He and Esther begin a correspondence.  Then Esther discovers that Peter is a German P.O.W.  That's when the trouble really starts.

I really want to give the spoilers here, because the story is intriguing and enjoyable.  Do I tell you if Linus does or doesn't return from war?  Do I tell you what he wrote in his letter?  Do I tell you that his true love is a nurse working in the same hospital as Esther?  Oops.  I guess I just let that one slip.  

Besides Esther and Peter (THANK YOU), the characters don't fully develop for me.  In fact, most of them are very one dimensional, although at the very end, two of the characters seem to have changed, although it is told third person.  

But Esther and Peter share a connection I can't deny that I enjoyed immensely.  Peter truly is one of the good guys.  German does not equate to Nazi which was difficult to distinguish back in the day.  There were decent, God-fearing, Christians on both sides of the war.  

Esther's journey is to learn to love herself and see herself as He does.  He sent His Son, the price is paid.  But Esther continues to stare her sins in the face without forgiving herself and moving on.  Peter happens to be a man who grasps repentance firmly.  He steers Esther to see what she needs to see and allow herself to be forgiven.  

Many of the characters' hearts require changing before the loose ends are tied up.  Peter discovers he has dark corners in his heart that require His Love.

A truly enjoyable read.

About Susan May Warren : Susan May Warren is the RITA award-winning author of twenty-four novels with Tyndale, Barbour and Steeple Hill. A four-time Christy award finalist, a two-time RITA Finalist, she’s also a multi-winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice award, and the ACFW Book of the Year.

Susan's larger than life characters and layered plots have won her acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. A seasoned women’s events and retreats speaker, she’s a popular writing teacher at conferences around the nation and the author of the beginning writer’s workbook: From the Inside-Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you!. She is also the founder of www.MyBookTherapy.com, a story-crafting service that helps authors discover their voice.

Susan makes her home in northern Minnesota , where she is busy cheering on her two sons in football, and her daughter in local theater productions (and desperately missing her college-age son!) A full listing of her titles, reviews and awards can be found at: www.susanmaywarren.com.

Contest: 

Contest info:  The Letters From Home Giveaway!

Enter the Contest: Nightingale is about letters, the power of written correspondence to convey thoughts and emotions to those far away. And sometimes near. Letters are forever, they are something we savor and pull out to read again and again. They are often cherished and kept in a special place.

To celebrate the release of Nightingale, Susan would like you to write a letter. One grand prize winner will receive a Flip HD Camcorder. 5 runner's up winners will win a signed copy of Nightingale. There are two ways to enter the contest by writing letters.

1. Write a letter to a soldier. At the end of the contest we’ll print out and mail your letter for you.

2. Write a letter to a friend, loved one, family member, enemy. Tell them something you wished you’d told them before. Tell them you love them, or maybe how they touched your life. Perhaps an apology is in order or a thank you. Or perhaps you'd like to relate a funny tale or just share life. Whatever it is, submit it here along with your email address and we’ll send it for you. 

Enter here or at the SHARE page on the Brothers in Arms website. Or simply click on the button to the right.