Three Is My Lucky Number This February

Because two of my favorite series has their third installment THIS WEEK!!!  I'm actually taking off a couple of days this week to JUST READ.  Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, here are the two books I'm spending my vacation days reading:

The fate of the world is more fragile than ever as Pures battle Wretches and former allies become potential enemies.

Inside the Dome, Patridge has taken his father's place as leader of the Pures. His intent had been to bring down the Dome from the inside with the help of the secret resistance force led by Partridge's former teacher Glassings. But from his new position of power, things don't seem quite as clear. Perhaps his father had been right. Perhaps if the world is to survive it needs the Dome--and Partridge--to rule it.

Outside the Dome Pressia and Bradwell continue piecing together the clues left to them by their parents from the time before the detonations. Soon they will be able to help heal the Wretches, freeing them from their monstrous fusings and the Dome's oppression once and for all. But their success also depends on Partridge. Can they still trust their friend and ally to see their plan through? Or will a new war begin?

 

 

In this third book in Marissa Meyer's bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and prevent her army from invading Earth.

Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who’s only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she’s being forced to work for Queen Levana, and she’s just received orders to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is splintered. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a higher price than she’d ever expected. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai, especially the cyborg mechanic. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.

I'll let you know what I think of these books as soon as I can.  If any of you haven't tried out these series, I very much recommend them to anyone 12 and over.  They are both about strong women and both will get your blood pumping.

--Jackie

Some Pictures From the 2014 Writers Respond To Readers

Nancy Horan

Peter Heller

Coming out in May 2014

Brian Payton

Karen Russell

And a packed house to for all the authors.  Thank you so much!!!

TC Tidibts: Read Me! Please!: Book Titles Rewritten to Get More Clicks

Check out the tongue-in-cheek renamings of these novels HERE.

Meet Our New Kids' VIB

A collection of the journals, fiction, letters, and sketches of the late Esther Grace Earl, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 16. Photographs and essays by family and friends will help to tell Esther’s story along with an introduction by award-winning author John Green who dedicated his #1 bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars to her.

Wayne and Lori Earl are the parents of the late Esther Earl and founders of the non-profit organization This Star Won’t Go Out (tswgo.org), whose mission it is to financially assist families struggling through the journey of a child living with cancer. Together Wayne and Lori have created a financial and emotional support system for more than 50 families struggling with childhood cancer, giving out nearly $100,000, from purchases of TSWGO bracelets, through donations given individually, at LeakyCon, and Project for Awesome; and by fabulous fundraisers planned and implemented by individuals and groups. TSWGO also funds occasional projects that fit their mission statement, such as sponsoring events for children with cancer, giving financial support to pediatric cancer research, and other related projects.

Judy B. says:
"John Green talks about Esther Earl a lot, and he dedicated his book The Fault in Our Stars to Esther, as she was an important muse for him.
 
Esther Grace Earl died at 16, a victim of cancer. But she lived a most amazing,
positive teen life, and wrote about her illness online, and her words were read by many teens, both well and sick. She was creative, funny, and frank, and wise beyond her years. 

This book is not depressing; it is about an awesome girl who loved and honored every minute of her life.
She will not be forgotten."

Every now and then we encounter a new children's book or series that we’re so excited about we want to broadcast it from the rooftop, so we've created a Kids' TC VIB (very impressive book) for a real stand-out among the many delightful and meaningful new editions for young readers. 

"We will not forget you, we will not dishonor you, we will remember and be glad that you lived among us, that you taught us, and that you loved us all." ~from "His Day Is Done"

He was a son of Africa who became father to a nation and, for billions of people around the world, a beacon of hope, courage, and perseverance in the face of opposition. Now, acclaimed poet Maya Angelou honors the life and remarkable soul of Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa and Nobel laureate.

In His Day is Done, Angelou delivers an authentically heartfelt and elegant tribute to Mandela, who stood as David to the mighty Goliath of Apartheid and who, after twenty-seven years of unjust imprisonment on the notorious Robben Island, emerged with “His stupendous heart intact / His gargantuan will / Hale and hearty” to lead his people into a new era.

This poignant work of gratitude and remembrance offers condolences to the resilient people of South Africa on the loss of their beloved “Madiba” and celebrates a man like no other, whose life and work changed the world.

Just Shelved...

From the award-winning writer of Easter Island (hailed by People magazine as a “rich and worldly first novel”), comes a powerful story of love, loss, and redemption amidst the ruins of war-torn Italy.

1943: When seventeen-year-old Juliet Dufresne receives a cryptic letter from her enlisted older brother pleading for help, and then finds out he’s been reported missing overseas, she lies about her age and volunteers as an army nurse to find him. Shy and awkward, Juliet is thrust into the bloody chaos of a field hospital, living in a sprawling encampment north of Rome where she forges new friendships with her fellow nurses and is increasingly consumed by the plight of her patients. One in particular, Christopher Barnaby, a deserter awaiting court martial, may hold the answer to her brother’s fate—but the trauma of war has left him unable to speak. Racing against the clock, Juliet works with an enigmatic young psychiatrist, Henry Willard, to heal Barnaby’s psychic wound before the authorities take him away and any clues as to her brother’s fate are forever lost. Plunged into the horrifying depths of one man’s combat memories, Juliet and Willard are forced to plumb the moral nuances of a so-called just war, and to face the dangers of their own deepening connection.

Reminiscent of Pat Barker’s Regeneration, The Secret of Raven Point is a war saga capturing the experiences of soldiers after the battles have ended. And as few novels have done, it depicts the ravages of war through the eyes of a young woman.

In luminous prose, Vanderbes tells the story of one girl’s fierce determination to find her brother as she comes of age in a time of unrelenting violence. The Secret of Raven Point is historical fiction at its best: haunting, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting.

 

 

An atmospheric tale of romantic noir with shades of Hitchcock about a man who is swept into a vortex of irresistible passion and murder when an old love mysteriously reappears

George Foss, a forty-year-old employee of a Boston literary magazine, has passed the age when he thinks he might fall madly in love or take the world by storm, or have anything truly remarkable happen to him. He spends most of his evenings at his local tavern talking about the Red Sox and the minutiae of everyday life, and obsessing over a lost love from his college days who vanished twenty years earlier. Until she reappears.

George has both dreamed of and dreaded seeing Liana Decter again. She isn't just an ex-girlfriend or the first love George could never forget. She's also an enigma and quite possibly someone who was involved in a murder years ago, a woman whose transgressions are more in line with Greek tragedy than youthful indiscretion. But suddenly, she's back--and she needs his help. She says that some men are after her and that they believe she's stolen money from them. And now they will do whatever it takes to get it back.

George knows Liana is trouble. But he can't say no--he never could--and soon his quiet life is gone as he is pulled into a terrifying whirlpool of lies, betrayal, and murder from which there is no sure escape.

Bold and masterful, full of malevolent foreboding and subtle surprises, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart is an addictive, nonstop reading experience--an ever-tightening coil of suspense that will hold you in its grip right up to its electrifying end. 

 

 

Set in an Italian seaside village where every man’s life revolves around soccer, this compelling novel tells the story of a widowed butcher and his son whose losses are transformed into love.

The death of his twin brother and subsequent suicide of his mother leaves twenty-two-year-old Etto adrift in his small town on the Italian Riviera. A misanthrope and a cynic, Etto is faced with the seemingly impossible prospect of cobbling together the remaining pieces of his life, including his mostly nonexistent relationship with his father, the town butcher.

 

Things begin to change for Etto when Yuri Fil, a scandalized Ukrainian soccer star and his tough-love sister, Zhuki, arrive in town, and sweep him into their universe of soccer, celebrity, laughter, and fierce loyalty. Under their influence, Etto begins to reconstruct his relationship with his father and learns a few life lessons: that perhaps the game of soccer isn’t just a waste of time—and that San Benedetto, his father, love, and life itself might have more to offer him than he ever believed possible. 

 

Loosely following the trajectory of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Etto finally learns to make peace with both the tragedy of his past and the direction of his future.

 

 

The friendship between Mary and Nix had endured since childhood, a seemingly unbreakable bond, until the mid-1980s, when the two young women reunited for a summer vacation in Greece. It was a trip instigated by Nix, who had just learned that Mary had been diagnosed with a disease that would inevitably cut her life short. Nix, a free spirit by nature, was determined that Mary have the vacation of a lifetime, but by the time their visit to Greece was over, the ties between them had unraveled, and when they said goodbye, it was for the last time.

Three years later, Mary returns to Europe to try to understand what went wrong, in the process meeting the first of many men she will spend time with and travel with throughout the world. Through them she experiences not just a sexual awakening but a spiritual and emotional awakening that allows her to understand how the past and the future are connected, and to appreciate how important it is that she live her life to the fullest.

TC Tidbit: Interesting Authors' Penmanship

Check it out HERE.