Monday, February 2, 2015

Randy Is Recommending:

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One snowy December morning in an old European city, an American man leaves his shabby hotel to meet a local woman who has agreed to help him search for an apartment to rent. The Apartment follows the couple across a blurry, illogical, and frozen city into a past the man is hoping to forget, and leaves them at the doorstep of an uncertain future-their cityscape punctuated by the man's lingering memories of time spent in Iraq and the life he abandoned in the United States. Contained within the details of this day is a complex meditation on America's relationship with the rest of the world, an unflinching glimpse at the permanence of guilt and despair, and an exploration into our desire to cure violence with violence.

A novel about how our relationships to others-and most importantly to ourselves-alters how we see the world, The Apartment perfectly captures the peculiarity and excitement of being a stranger in a strange city. Written in an affecting and intimate tone that gradually expands in scope, intensity, poetry, and drama, Greg Baxter's clear-eyed first novel tells the intriguing story of these two people on this single day. Both beguiling and raw in its observations and language, The Apartment is a crisp novel with enormous range that offers profound and unexpected wisdom.


http://bit.ly/1ySMhh6
"Every life is different, but every death is the same. We live with others. We die alone."

In his riveting, artfully written memoir The Autobiography of an Execution, David Dow enraptured readers with a searing and frank exploration of his work defending inmates on death row. But when Dow's father-in-law receives his own death sentence in the form of terminal cancer, and his gentle dog Winona suffers acute liver failure, the author is forced to reconcile with death in a far more personal way, both as a son and as a father.

Told through the disparate lenses of the legal battles he's spent a career fighting, and the intimate confrontations with death each family faces at home, Things I've Learned From Dying offers a poignant and lyrical account of how illness and loss can ravage a family. Full of grace and intelligence, Dow offers readers hope without cliché and reaffirms our basic human needs for acceptance and love by giving voice to the anguish we all face--as parents, as children, as partners, as friends--when our loved ones die tragically, and far too soon.


http://bit.ly/1Bq9Jlk
Fiendish suspense. 
Shocking twists.
Twelve diabolical tales.


New York Times bestselling author and highly acclaimed storyteller Jeffery Deaver-the undisputed "grand master of the plot twist" (Booklist)-returns with a dazzling new collection of short stories. In these twelve electrifying tales (including six written just for this anthology) Deaver proves once again his genius for the unexpected-in his world, appearances are always deceiving.

A devoted housekeeper embarks on a quest to find the truth behind her employer's murder. A washed-up Hollywood actor gets one last, high-stakes chance to revive his career. A man makes an impulsive visit to his hometown, and learns more about his past than he bargained for. Two Olympic track hopefuls receive terrorist threats. And Deaver's beloved series characters Lincoln Rhyme, Kathryn Dance, and John Pellam return in stories now in print for the first time.
 
 
http://bit.ly/15AGqkI
In the tiny town of Titan Falls, New Hampshire, the paper mill dictates a quiet, steady rhythm of life. But one day a tragic bus accident sets two families on a course toward destruction, irrevocably altering the lives of everyone in their wake.

June McAllister is the wife of the local mill owner and undisputed first lady in town. But the Snow family, a group of itinerant ne'er-do-wells who live on a decrepit and cursed property, have brought her--and the town--nothing but grief.

June will do anything to cover up a dark secret she discovers after the crash, one that threatens to upend her picture-perfect life, even if it means driving the Snow family out of town. But she has never gone up against a force as fierce as the young Mercy Snow. Mercy is determined to protect her rebellious brother, whom the town blames for the accident, despite his innocence. And she has a secret of her own. When an old skeleton is discovered not far from the crash, it beckons Mercy to solve a mystery buried deep within the town's past. 
 
 
http://bit.ly/1zKspOH
Daphne Mitchell has always believed in cause and effect, right and wrong, good and bad. The good: her dream job as a doctor; Owen, her childhood sweetheart and now husband; the beautiful farmhouse they're restoring together. In fact, most of her life has been good--until the day Owen comes home early from work to tell her he's fallen head over heels for someone else.

Unable to hate him, but also equally incapable of moving forward, Daphne's life hangs in limbo until the day Owen's new girlfriend sustains near-fatal injuries in a car accident. As Daphne becomes a pillar of support for the devastated Owen, and realizes that reconciliation may lie within her grasp, she has to find out whether forgiveness is possible and decide which path is the right one for her.

New For The Kiddies

http://bit.ly/1yd6AQY
Despite her name, Clover has always felt decidedly unlucky. So when she stumbles upon a mysterious cottage in the Woods, she can hardly believe her good fortune. It's the Magical Animal Adoption Agency, and it houses creatures of all kinds. Fairy horses, unicorns, and a fiery young dragon are just the beginning!

Mr. Jams, the Agency's owner, agrees to hire her as summer helper and Clover hopes her luck has finally changed. But when she's left alone to care for the Agency, a sneaky witch comes after the magical creatures! Will Clover outsmart her in time to protect the animals?

The first installment in a new illustrated chapter book series by Kallie George, featuring enchanting illustrations by Alexandra Boiger, will charm young readers as Clover learns that courage and heart can be even more powerful than good luck.
 
 
http://bit.ly/1JAL4MK
Chris Richards has always looked up to Jax, his older brother and his parents' "golden child." Lately, though, Jax has been full of surprises. First he dropped out of law school; then he started hanging out with some shifty-looking friends. 
 
One day Jax asks Chris to recruit his best middle school teammates for a pick-up basketball game in the park. Chris doesn't think much of it until the wrong team wins and Jax goes ballistic. It turns out that Jax bet on the game, hoping to earn enough money to repay a debt to someone who doesn't forgive easily. 
 
While Chris tries to walk a thin tightrope between helping his brother and staying out of trouble, his friend Theo does some behind-the-scenes detective work to learn what Jax has been up to. The day Chris is roped into a police investigation is the day he realizes he made the wrong play.


http://bit.ly/1JANviq
A blue crayon mistakenly labeled as "red" suffers an identity crisis in the new picture book by the New York Times-bestselling creator of My Heart Is Like a Zoo and It's an Orange Aardvark Funny, insightful, and colorful, Red: A Crayon's Story, by Michael Hall, is about being true to your inner self and following your own path despite obstacles that may come your way. Red will appeal to fans of Lois Ehlert, Eric Carle, and The Day the Crayons Quit, and makes a great gift for readers of any age

Red has a bright red label, but he is, in fact, blue. His teacher tries to help him be red (let's draw strawberries ), his mother tries to help him be red by sending him out on a playdate with a yellow classmate (go draw a nice orange ), and the scissors try to help him be red by snipping his label so that he has room to breathe. But Red is miserable. He just can't be red, no matter how hard he tries. Finally, a brand-new friend offers a brand-new perspective, and Red discovers what readers have known all along. He's blue.

This funny, heartwarming, colorful picture book about finding the courage to be true to your inner self can be read on multiple levels, and it offers something for everyone.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds

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An intricately plotted, thoroughly addictive thriller from a major new voice in suspense fiction—a mesmerizing and powerful novel that will keep you guessing to the very end

It's funny how easy it is, when it really comes down to it, to get up from your life and begin a new one. All you need is enough money to start you off, and a resolve not to think about the people you're leaving behind."

A happy marriage. A beautiful family. A dream home. So what makes lawyer Emily Coleman—a woman who appears to have everything—get up one morning and walk right out of her life to start again as someone new?

Deliberately losing herself in London, Emily quickly transforms herself into Cat. Along with her new name, she finds a new home in a shared house in North London teeming with an odd assortment of flatmates, and a new job as a receptionist at a hip advertising agency. Finding easy kinship with the fun-loving Angel, her savior and new best friend, Cat begins to live on the edge, giddy with the euphoria of freedom and release.

Cat has buried any trace of her old self so well, no one knows how to find her. But she can't bury the past—or her own painful memories. As the days turn to months, thoughts of all she's left behind begin to consume her. She cannot outrun the ghosts that haunt her, no matter how hard she tries to elude them.

And soon, she'll have to face the truth of what she's done—a shocking revelation that may push her one step too far . . .

Filled with wonderfully complex characters, brilliantly plotted to ratchet the suspense, and exploring themes of family, secrets, and the choices we all must make, One Step Too Far is a mesmerizing thriller that tantalizingly illuminates just how far we may go to try and forget our sins.

No one has ever guessed Emily’s secret. Will you?



Read an excerpt HERE.

The Teatime Author Interview…with Tina Seskis

Get more clues HERE.

Guest Blogger: Tina Seskis, author of ONE STEP TOO FAR

Tina Seskis Interview, One Step Too Far

Praise for the book:
“Tina Seskis, if this novel is anything to go by, is one of the world’s leading experts at pulling the wool over readers’ eyes until the very end.” ~Sophie Hannah, author of The Carrier

“Seskis expertly depicts the new life of a runaway wife, Emily Coleman, in her exciting if not groundbreaking first novel… a diverting read.” ~Publishers Weekly

“Debut novelist Seskis displays a keen sense of pacing ... and her backstories on Emily’s family are vivid yet done with great economy. ...Seskis hooks readers from the outset while also spelling out the high emotional costs of abandoning loved ones. A skillfully done novel by a writer to watch.” ~Booklist

“Add this [book] to the growing Gone Girl subgenre, designed for readers who appreciate the journey and are willing to invest the time to reflect on its significance once the destination is reached.” ~Library Journal

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds

http://bit.ly/1yFeJTg
Good wife, good mother. That's all Claire Spruce is trying to be, but the never-ending snow in this new town and her workaholic husband are making her crazy. Even the sweet face of her toddler son can't pull her out of the dark places in her head.

Feeling overwhelmed and alone, she reconnects with her long-lost high school boyfriend, Dean, who offers an intoxicating, reckless escape. But Dean's reappearance is not a coincidence. He wants something from Claire-and she soon finds that the cost of repaying an old favor may lead to the destruction of her entire life.

What Burns Away is a story of loyalty, family, and the consequences of the past's inevitable collision with our future.


Melissa Falcon Field and the risks of social media

Praise for the book:
What Burns Away manages to be many things at once: an elegy for a lost girlhood, a study of geographical and cosmic displacement, a portrait of a waning marriage, and a portrayal of a heroine whom readers will find both surprising and relatable. In extraordinary sleight of hand, Melissa Falcon Field blazes through this debut novel with a big-hearted sensuality and a bull’s-eye precision on a par with our best working writers today. A must-read debut.” ~Jan Elizabeth Watson, author of What Has Become of You

“Swiftly paced and utterly engrossing, What Burns Away is the searing portrait of a devoted mother undone by isolation, grief and her own darkest impulses. Melissa Falcon Field writes with such honesty and empathy, it was impossible not to see myself reflected on the page. A brave, textured, emotionally complex book that haunts me still.” ~Jillian Medoff, author of I Couldn’t Love You More

What Burns Away is captivating. I picked it up expecting to read a chapter and didn’t put it down until the final sentence. It moves fast, doesn’t let you catch your breath, and leaves you shaken. Melissa Falcon Field has a knack for bringing her settings to life: in her hands, landlocked Wisconsin and the Connecticut shoreline are themselves indelible characters, full of secrets and longings, at once familiar and utterly strange.” ~Sarah Braunstein, author of The Sweet Relief of Missing Children

What Burns Away is a study of safety, loyalty, and heart. But it’s also the story of what happens when those things run up against boredom, when they gaze in the smoky glass of lost mirrors and see soulful shadows of passion, freedom, and risk. A new mom’s fiery first love is back, and he challenges all she’s built for herself, reveals the fragility of suburban dreams. In scorching prose, Melissa Falcon Field reminds us that when trouble flies out to the far reaches of the solar system, we’d best not forget it’s coming back.” ~Bill Roorbach, author of The Remedy for Love

“Melissa Falcon Field’s thrilling, perceptive debut novel is about the deep dive that is falling in love with a baby, a husband, an old flame—and also a fearless look at the ways we risk, and even seek, its destruction. I sat down with What Burns Away and didn’t stand up till it was over.” ~Michelle Wildgen, author of Bread and Butter

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds

http://bit.ly/1CxXmW1
A debut, coming-of-age novel in which a teenage girl from Philadelphia leaves her old life behind to become The Sweetheart, one of America's most infamous female wrestlers.
It's 1953 and seventeen-year-old Leonie Putzkammer is cartoonishly tall and curvaceous, destined to spend the rest of her life waiting tables and living with her widowed father, Franz, in their Philadelphia row house. Until the day legendary wrestling promoter Salvatore Costantini walks into the local diner and offers her the chance of a lifetime.

Leonie sets off for Florida to train at Joe Pospisil's School for Lady Grappling. There, she transforms into Gorgeous Gwen Davies, tag-team partner of legendary Screaming Mimi Hollander, and begins a romance with the soon-to-be Junior Heavyweight Champion Spider McGee. But when life as Gorgeous Gwen leaves her wanting, she orchestrates a move that will catapult her from heel to hero: she becomes The Sweetheart, a choice that attracts the fans she desires but complicates all of her relationships--with Franz, Joe, Spider, Mimi (who becomes her fiercest competitor), and even with herself.

Angelina Mirabella's surprising, affecting, and morally complex novel describes how a single decision can ripple through the lives of everyone around us. How Leonie sizes up the competition, how she triumphs, how she fails, and how she manages, somehow, to endure, holds promise: if she can, maybe we can, too. The Sweetheart showcases Mirabella's breathtaking talent; it is daring, innovative, and powerful storytelling.


Debut Author Snapshot: Angelina Mirabella

The Power of You: 5 Stories Written in Second Person

Novel about 1950s women’s wrestling a sweetheart debut

Praise for the book: 
“You would be forgiven for thinking Angelina Mirabella had herself been a star lady wrestler in the 1950s, given how authentically detailed her debut novel is. Fortunately for us, she’s a fiction writer—and a superb one—who has penned The Sweetheart, bringing all her glorious gifts of empathy and language to bear on its unforgettable heroine.” ~Teddy Wayne, author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

“Smart, funny, and poignant, Angelina Mirabella’s The Sweetheart puts a hammerlock on one of literature’s most important themes, the search for an identity, and makes it cry ‘Auntie!’ This is a delightfully original novel by a champ of a new writer.” ~Robert Olen Butler,  author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

“Like Gwen Davies, its deeply loveable heroine, The Sweetheart is a delightful combination of beauty, brawn, and heart. Angelina Mirabella revives the entertainment of ‘lady wrestling’ from its black-and-white age and raises it to the level of art. This is a bold, agile, and breathlessly exuberant debut.” ~Eleanor Henderson, author of Ten Thousand Saints

“Why haven’t there been more novels written about the lady wrestling circuit of the 1950s? Thank God the talented Angelina Mirabella has opened up this fascinating world for us in her mesmerizing debut novel, The Sweetheart. Its heroine—Gorgeous Gwen Davies—is the most feisty and vulnerable character you’ll ever meet. Once she leaps from the turnbuckle and takes the competition to the mat, you’ll find yourself out of your seat and cheering. The Sweetheart made me downright giddy.” ~Elizabeth Stuckey-French, author of The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady

"Debut novelist Mirabella delivers a powerful blow with her coming-of-age story set in the world of women's professional wrestling in 1953. Leonie Putzkammer is a 17-year-old who's primed to reinvent herself...The novel is bursting with colorful characters who are far more complex than the heels and faces they portray in the theater of professional wrestling. A powerful tale of a person's capacity for reinvention." ~Kirkus Reviews

"An engrossing portrait of the little-known world of women's wrestling with questions about the nature of stardom and showing love. Leonie will fascinate teens, especially girls, as she makes her own way in a male-dominated sport. There's much here for book clubs to discuss." ~Library Journal

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds

http://bit.ly/1wtte7c
An irresistible debut novel about the wisdom of the very young, the mischief of the very old, and the magic that happens when no one else is looking

Millie Bird, seven years old and ever hopeful, always wears red gumboots to match her curly hair. Her struggling mother, grieving the death of Millie’s father, leaves her in the big ladies’ underwear department of a local store and never returns.

Agatha Pantha, eighty-two, has not left her house—or spoken to another human being—since she was widowed seven years ago. She fills the silence by yelling at passersby, watching loud static on TV, and maintaining a strict daily schedule.

Karl the Touch Typist, eighty-seven, once used his fingers to type out love notes on his wife’s skin. Now that she’s gone, he types his words out into the air as he speaks. Karl’s been committed to a nursing home, but in a moment of clarity and joy, he escapes. Now he’s on the lam.

Brought together at a fateful moment, the three embark upon a road trip across Western Australia to find Millie’s mother. Along the way, Karl wants to find out how to be a man again; Agatha just wants everything to go back to how it was.

Together they will discover that old age is not the same as death, that the young can be wise, and that letting yourself feel sad once in a while just might be the key to a happy life.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Q&A with Author Brooke Davis
Q&A with Author Brooke Davis
Q&A with Author Brooke Davis
Q&A with Author Brooke Davis

 
 
 
 
Praise for the book:
“A whimsical and touching debut [and an] “ultimately powerful exploration of grief from a skillful and original new voice.”  ~Kirkus

“The same feel-good word of mouth as last year’s bestseller, The Rosie Project.” ~The Sydney Morning Herald

“A novel that dances on the wire between heartache and joy, a delight to the reader in its explorations.” ~Yahoo News

“Everything about the characters and the writing feels right, and the result is a book that’s heartbreaking, funny and brilliant.” ~Courier Mail

Lost & Found is informed by Davis’s personal heartache but it is buoyed by something more universal – our need to love and be loved, regardless of the risk.” ~Newcastle Herald

“If at first the reasons why this tale of love and loss, grief and great mates sparked a bidding war among publishers aren’t obvious, as the characters unfold, it becomes clear that this is storytelling at its purest.”  ~Weekend Post

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds

A highly charged fiction debut about a young woman in India, and the love that both shatters and transforms her

She is twenty, restless in New Delhi. Her mother has died; her father has left for Singapore.

He is a few years older, just back to India from New York.

When they meet in a café one afternoon, she—lonely, hungry for experience, yearning to break free of tradition—casts aside her fears and throws herself headlong into a love affair, one that takes her where she has never been before.

Told in a voice at once gritty and lyrical, mournful and frank, A Bad Character marks the arrival of an astonishingly gifted new writer. It is an unforgettable hymn to a dangerous, exhilarating city, and a portrait of desire and its consequences as timeless as it is universal.

Read an excerpt HERE. 

 
Wild At Heart

Shelfie with Deepti Kapoor, author of A Bad Character 

Deepti Kapoor's  Book Notes Playlist for Her Novel A Bad Character


Praise for the book:
“Riveting . . . Kapoor’s debut novel is a coming-of-age tale as complex, gritty and frankly terrifying as Delhi, the city that forms its backdrop. A 19-year-old college student leads a relatively unexciting life in Delhi, where her father sent her to live with a wealthy aunt after the death of her mother and his own absconding to Singapore. It’s here, in the city of her exile, that she meets her nameless boyfriend: American-accented and charismatic—we’re told from the beginning that he dies by her 21st birthday; she becomes addicted to him and his doomed promises of adventure. The non-linear story takes cues from moody European New Wave cinema and Baudelaireian prose poetry, but its mongrel influences makes for a cohesive, and thoroughly modern, tale.” ~Bustle

“The narrator of Kapoor’s debut novel is young and middle-class. Her car allows a measure of freedom, but not enough, and when she meets a somewhat unsuitable older man, the temptation to capsize her life with an affair is irresistible. Both a coming-of-age story and a portrait of New Delhi.” ~The Millions

“Riveting . . . Kapoor’s debut follows a young woman’s personal journey amid the shifting, often gritty landscape of modern-day Delhi. At a café one day, the beautiful 20-year-old protagonist—a self-described loner—is approached by an unnamed man to whom she is inexplicably drawn despite his unattractive physical features. Thus sparks an intense, at times discomfiting relationship that begins to pull the narrator away from her conventional life, as she becomes increasingly exposed and lured to the darker recesses of the city and its inhabitants. An intimate, raw exploration of [a] profound transformation.” ~Booklist

“Haunting . . . a beguiling, hallucinatory experience, at once unsettling and intimate. This is a novel about sexuality and escape, belonging and emptiness. It is about a man and woman who drive around the intestines of Delhi—eating, making love, falling apart. It is also about disenfranchisement, about how a woman might feel in Delhi regardless of her privilege or access. A Bad Character is an astounding book: read it with the scent of diesel in your nostrils and red dust in your mouth.” ~The New Indian Express

“The meeting between a restless young woman and a manipulative, worldly man in Delhi ignites a volatile, ill-fated love story. The nameless female narrator meets a man in a café. Ugly he may be, and a liar too, it emerges, but the man knows Delhi inside out, has wealth, confidence and a wild streak, and woos her slowly but thoroughly. Kapoor boosts her slender coming-of-age story with flashes of Delhi in 2000, a place of economic ferment in some quarters, while elsewhere, the teeming centuries-old ways continue. This novel is at its most impressive in its evocation of a dazzling, dangerous cityscape.”  ~Kirkus

“A tightly rendered story of a young woman’s awakening in contemporary India. The unnamed female narrator, ‘twenty and untouched’ when her mother dies, is sent by her absentee father to live with a relative in a modest Delhi apartment. One day she meets a rich, rebellious, darker-skinned young man from a different social class and subsequently begins a torrid affair with him. In clipped, haunting paragraphs, she tells of her discovery of a gritty, thrilling India that she never knew existed. The tension that the affair will be exposed becomes almost unbearable. [But] Kapoor takes the story in darker and tragic directions [even as] the prose becomes more ruminative and elliptical. The story and the style are reminiscent of Marguerite Duras’s The Lover, but when fused with the vivid Delhi scenes, Kapoor’s novel ventures into exciting and original territory.” ~Publishers Weekly

Wild at heart

Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/RXwy0A4oyU3t5bdQA9uWOO/Wild-at-heart.html?utm_source=cop
Wild at heart

Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/RXwy0A4oyU3t5bdQA9uWOO/Wild-at-heart.html?utm_source=cop