Waiting on Wednesday - 4.5.17

Waiting on Wednesday
hosted by Breaking the Spine
Spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.
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I'm waiting for...

Always and Forever, Lara Jean
by Jenny Han
-Romance, YA
Release date: May 2, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
Lara Jean’s letter-writing days aren’t over in this surprise follow-up to the New York Times bestselling To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still Love You.

Lara Jean is having the best senior year a girl could ever hope for. She is head over heels in love with her boyfriend, Peter; her dad’s finally getting remarried to their next door neighbor, Ms. Rothschild; and Margot’s coming home for the summer just in time for the wedding.

But change is looming on the horizon. And while Lara Jean is having fun and keeping busy helping plan her father’s wedding, she can’t ignore the big life decisions she has to make. Most pressingly, where she wants to go to college and what that means for her relationship with Peter. She watched her sister Margot go through these growing pains. Now Lara Jean’s the one who’ll be graduating high school and leaving for college and leaving her family—and possibly the boy she loves—behind.

When your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?

This is #3 in the series To All the Boys I've Loved Before...

To All the Boys I've Loved Before
(To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #1)
by Jenny Han
-romance, YA
Amazon | Goodreads

P.S. I Still Love You
(To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2)
by Jenny Han
Amazon | Goodreads

Waiting on Wednesday - 3.22.17

Waiting on Wednesday
hosted by Breaking the Spine
Spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.
~*~
I'm waiting for...

A Ring of Truth
(A Henrietta and Inspector Clive Novel, #2)
by Michelle Cox
-Historical, Mystery
Release date: April 4, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
In this second book of the series, Henrietta and Clive delightfully rewrite Pride and Prejudice―with a hint of mystery!

Newly engaged, Clive and Henrietta now begin the difficult task of meeting each other’s family. “Difficult” because Clive has neglected to tell Henrietta that he is in fact the heir to the Howard estate and fortune, and Henrietta has just discovered that her mother has been hiding secrets about her past as well. When Clive brings Henrietta to the family estate to meet his parents, they are less than enthused about his impoverished intended. Left alone in this extravagant new world when Clive returns to the city, Henrietta finds herself more at home with the servants than his family, much to the disapproval of Mrs. Howard―and soon gets caught up in the disappearance of an elderly servant’s ring, not realizing that in doing so she has become part of a bigger, darker plot.

As Clive and Henrietta attempt to discover the truth in the two very different worlds unraveling around them, they both begin to wonder: Are they meant for each other after all?

Waiting on Wednesday - 3.8.17

Waiting on Wednesday
hosted by Breaking the Spine
Spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.
~*~
I'm waiting for...

Big Mushy Happy Lump:
A Sarah's Scribbles Collection
by Sarah Andersen
-Comics, Humor
Release date: March 7, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
Swimsuit season is coming up! Better get beach-body ready! Work on those abs! Lift those butts!

...Um, or how about never mind to all that and just be a lump. Big Mushy Happy Lump!

Sarah Andersen's hugely popular, world-famous Sarah's Scribbles comics are for those of us who boast bookstore-ready bodies and Netflix-ready hair, who are always down for all-night reading-in-bed parties and extremely exclusive after-hour one-person music festivals.

In addition to the most recent Sarah's Scribbles fan favorites and dozens of all-new comics, this volume contains illustrated personal essays on Sarah's real-life experiences with anxiety, career, relationships and other adulthood challenges that will remind readers of Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half and Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened. The same uniquely frank, real, yet humorous and uplifting tone that makes Sarah's Scribbles so relatable blooms beautifully in this new longer form.


LOVED Sarah's Adulthood is a Myth. Have a feeling this one will be just as entertaining with lots of chuckles.

Waiting on Wednesday - 3.1.17

Waiting on Wednesday
hosted by Breaking the Spine
Spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.
For March, Women's History Month, I'm waiting for...

How to Be a Bawse:
A Guide to Conquering Life
by Lilly Singh
-Humor, Self Help
Release date: March 28, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
From the 2017 People’s Choice Award winner for Favorite YouTube Star comes the definitive guide to being a bawse: a person who exudes confidence, hustles relentlessly, and smiles genuinely because he or she has fought through it all and made it out the other side.

Lilly Singh isn’t just a superstar. She’s Superwoman—which is also the name of her wildly popular YouTube channel. Funny, smart, and insightful, the actress and comedian covers topics ranging from relationships to career choices to everyday annoyances. It’s no wonder she’s garnered more than a billion views. But Lilly didn’t get to the top by being lucky—she had to work for it. Hard.

Now Lilly wants to share the lessons she learned while taking the world by storm, and the tools she used to do it. How to Be a Bawse is the definitive guide to conquering life. Make no mistake, there are no shortcuts to success, personal or professional. World domination requires real effort, dedication, and determination. Just consider Lilly a personal trainer for your life—with fifty rules to get you in the game, including

• Let Go of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out): Temptation will try to steer you away from your goals. FOMO is just a test of your priorities, a test that a bawse is ready to pass.
• Be Nice to People: Treat niceness like an item on your daily to-do list. People will go out of their way to help and support you because you make them feel good.
• Schedule Inspiration: Lack of motivation isn’t permanent or a sign of weakness. Expect it and proactively schedule time to be creative.
• Be the Dumbest: Challenge yourself by surrounding yourself with people who know more than you do. It’s a vital way to learn and improve.

Told in Lilly’s hilarious, bold voice and packed with photos and candid stories from her journey to the top, How to Be a Bawse will make you love your life and yourself—even more than you love Beyoncé. (Yes, we said it!)

WARNING: This book does not include hopeful thoughts, lucky charms, or cute quotes. That’s because success, happiness, and everything else you want in life need to be worked for, not wished for. In Lilly’s world, there are no escalators, only stairs. Get ready to climb.

Waiting on Wednesday - 2.22.17

Waiting on Wednesday
hosted by Breaking the Spine
Spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.
I'm waiting for...

The Song Rising
(The Bone Season #3)
by Samantha Shannon
-Fantasy, SciFi, YA
Release date: March 7, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
The hotly anticipated third book in the bestselling Bone Season series – a ground-breaking, dystopian fantasy of extraordinary imagination

Following a bloody battle against foes on every side, Paige Mahoney has risen to the dangerous position of Underqueen, ruling over London's criminal population.

But, having turned her back on Jaxon Hall and with vengeful enemies still at large, the task of stabilising the fractured underworld has never seemed so challenging.

Little does Paige know that her reign may be cut short by the introduction of Senshield, a deadly technology that spells doom for the clairvoyant community and the world as they know it…

HAVE not yet read book 2, but I am excited to see that the series continues.

Waiting on Wednesday - 2.15.17

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

Luna Rising
by Selene Castrovilla
-Women's Fiction
Release date: April 25, 2017
Amazon | BarnesNoble | Goodreads
Life begins at thirty-eight for Long Island mom and writer Luna Lampanelli, when she kicks her secretly gay husband to the curb. She's got her freedom, but what she wants is love.

Luna knows she doesn’t need a man to exist, but try telling that to her heart. Against the advice of Sunny, her snarky best friend, and Jiminy, the cautioning voice in Luna’s head that just won’t shut up, Luna sets course to find a mate.

Luna speed and on-line dates her way into several short-lived, surreal relationships. There’s Ari, the humorless Israeli who refuses to assimilate – to America, and to humanity. There’s Alex, the young and handsome ex-crackhead who informs Luna he doesn’t want to be monogamous while they’re in bed. There’s Memphis, the wild-eyed sadomasochist. There’s Red, angry and crippled, who becomes the catalyst for Luna to join Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.

But before Luna can proceed to recovery, she meets the elusive but oh so appealing Trip. He’s emotionally unavailable and has the Madonna-Whore Complex, but how can Luna (aka “whore”) let him go when she enjoys his dry wit so much, and his naked body even more?

Humorously haunting and packed with unspeakable truths, Luna Rising follows a woman's funny and heart-breaking struggle to relate with un-relatable men and an un-relatable world, and to figure out something even more un-relatable: herself.

Waiting on Wednesday - 2.8.17

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

The Bone Witch
by Rin Chupeco
-Fantasy, YA
Release date: March 7, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
Let me be clear: I never intended to raise my brother from his grave, though he may claim otherwise. If there's anything I've learned from him in the years since, it's that the dead hide truths as well as the living.

When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she's a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.

In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha―one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles...and make a powerful choice.

Waiting on Wednesday - 2.1.17

Waiting on Wednesday
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I'm waiting for...

Loving vs. Virginia:
A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case
by Patricia Hruby Powell
illustrated by Shadra Strickland
-Historical, Poetry, YA
Just released: January 31, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
Award-winning author Patricia Hruby Powell tells historic and humble love story of Mildred and Richard Loving in verse that alternates between the perspectives of the young couple, from their teenage courtship to the Supreme Court case that outlawed miscegenation laws.

This documentary novel includes photographs and artifacts from the tumultuous time, and as illustrations by Shadra Strickland that depict events before the couple found themselves in the spotlight.

THE movie version, Loving, introduced this story to me. I am curious to read more about this couple.

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* originally sponsored by (Breaking the Spine) in 2016

Waiting on Wednesday - 1.25.17

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

Some Kind of Magic
by Mary Ann Marlowe
-Romance
Amazon | Goodreads
In this sparkling debut novel, Mary Ann Marlowe introduces a hapless scientist who’s swept off her feet by a rock star—but is it love or just a chemical reaction?...

Biochemist Eden Sinclair has no idea that the scent she spritzed on herself before leaving the lab is designed to enhance pheromones. Or that the cute, grungy-looking guy she meets at a gig that evening is Adam Copeland. As in the Adam Copeland—international rock god and object of lust for a million women. Make that a million and one. By the time she learns the truth, she’s already spent the (amazing, incredible) night in his bed…

Suddenly Eden, who’s more accustomed to being set up on disastrous dates by her mom, is going out with a gorgeous celebrity who loves how down-to-earth and honest she is. But for once, Eden isn’t being honest. She can’t bear to reveal that this overpowering attraction could be nothing more than seduction by science. And the only way to know how Adam truly feels is to ditch the perfume—and risk being ditched in turn…

Smart, witty, and sexy, Some Kind of Magic is an irresistibly engaging look at modern relationships—why we fall, how we connect, and the courage it takes to trust in something as mysterious and unpredictable as love.

===== > Romance with a rock god... hmmmm ;-)


--~ Blog Tour Giveaway ~--
One winner will receive a $50 Amazon OR Book Depository Gift Card (International). Three winners will win a signed copy of SOME KIND OF MAGIC (US only) via Rafflecopter (here)

Waiting on Wednesday - 12.28.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

Into the Water
by Paula Hawkins
-Thriller
Release date: May 2, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
The book is about “the slipperiness of the truth, and a family drowning in secrets”, her publisher said.

Set in a small riverside town in the UK, the novel will “unfurl a gripping, twisting, layered story”. While little has been given away in terms of plot, it will feature two sisters and “ghostly echoes of the past”.

=====> As I liked, Girl on the Train, I am curious to see how this one is.

Waiting on Wednesday - 12.21.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
-Chicklit
Release date: June 6, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late 80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds—revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love—Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

Written with Reid’s signature talent for “creating complex, likable characters” (Real Simple), this is a fascinating journey through the splendor of Old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means—and what it takes—to face the truth.

=====> The words "scandalous" and "Old Hollywood" along with the gorgeous cover is what draws me to this one.

Excerpt:

New York Tribune
By Priya Amrit
March 2, 2017

Film legend and ’60s It Girl Evelyn Hugo has just announced that she will auction off 12 of her most memorable gowns through Christie’s to raise money for breast cancer research.

At the age of 79, Hugo has long been an icon of glamour and elegance. She is known for a personal style both sensual and restrained, and many of Hugo’s most famous looks are considered touchstones of the fashion and Hollywood archives.

Those looking to own a piece of Hugo history will be intrigued not only by the gowns themselves but also by the context in which they were worn. Included in the sale will be the emerald green Miranda La Conda that Hugo wore to the 1959 Academy Awards, the violet soufflé and organdy scoop-neck she donned at the premiere of Anna Karenina in 1962, and the navy blue silk Michael Maddax that she was wearing in 1982 when she won her Oscar for All for Us.

READ the rest of the excerpt (here)

Waiting on Wednesday - 12.7.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

The Burning World
(The Warm Bodies #3)
by Isaac Marion
-YA, Zombies
Release date: February 7, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
The New York Times bestseller Warm Bodies captured hearts worldwide in twenty-five languages, inspiring a major film and a cult fandom. Now R the reluctant zombie continues his journey in this much-anticipated sequel.

Being alive is hard. Being human is harder. But since his recent recovery from death, R is making progress. He’s learning how to read, how to speak, maybe even how to love, and the city’s undead population is showing signs of life. R can almost imagine a future with Julie, this girl who restarted his heart—building a new world from the ashes of the old one.

And then helicopters appear on the horizon. Someone is coming to restore order. To silence all this noise. To return things to the way they were, the good old days of stability and control and the strong eating the weak. The plague is ancient and ambitious, and the Dead were never its only weapon.

How do you fight an enemy that’s in everyone? Can the world ever really change? With their home overrun by madmen, R, Julie, and their ragged group of refugees plunge into the otherworldly wastelands of America in search of answers. But there are some answers R doesn’t want to find. A past life, an old shadow, crawling up from the basement.

=====> I enjoyed the movie version of book 1 and definitely want to see what happens with R and Julie.


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* part of December Zombies (schedule)

Waiting on Wednesday - 11.30.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

Affliction
(Withered series bk3)
by Amy Miles
-Zombies, Post-Apocalypse
Release date: December 6, 2016
Amazon | Goodreads
Though Avery Whitlock may have won the battle of the Grand Opry hotel, she knows the war is just beginning. Cable would stop at nothing to have her now that she was within his grasp—but to stay meant endangering innocent lives. No longer fully human and unwilling to accept her fate as a flesh-eating zombie, she must abandon the only place she could call home in order to save Nox and his people.

Driven to prevent anyone else from suffering from the same fate, she follows the trail of the doctor responsible for the heinous mutations as he races to reach the Atlanta Safe Zone. But with spilled blood on her hands and malice in her heart, her cravings to kill become amplified—and her grip on her humanity begins to slip.

Only the love of those closest to Avery can bring her back from the edge, but will they be able to reach her in time to save their own lives?

=====> I featured the first two books in this series and have not yet started reading it. However, the covers draw me in every time. I will most likely feature these in next year's batch of zombie reading ;-)


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* heads-up - December Zombies, a virtual book event, starts tomorrow

Waiting on Wednesday - 11.16.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

Victoria:
The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire
by Julia Baird
-Biography, History
Release date: November 22, 2016
Amazon | Goodreads
From International New York Times columnist Julia Baird comes a magnificent biography of Queen Victoria. Drawing on previously unpublished papers, Victoria: The Queen is a stunning new portrait of the real woman behind the myth—a story of love and heartbreak, of devotion and grief, of strength and resilience.

When Victoria was born, in 1819, the world was a very different place. Revolution would begin to threaten many of Europe’s monarchies in the coming decades. In Britain, a generation of royals had indulged their whims at the public’s expense, and republican sentiment was growing. The Industrial Revolution was transforming the landscape, and the British Empire was commanding ever larger tracts of the globe. Born into a world where woman were often powerless, during a century roiling with change, Victoria went on to rule the most powerful country on earth with a decisive hand.

Fifth in line to the throne at the time of her birth, Victoria was an ordinary woman thrust into an extraordinary role. As a girl, she defied her mother’s meddling and an adviser’s bullying, forging an iron will of her own. As a teenage queen, she eagerly grasped the crown and relished the freedom it brought her. At twenty years old, she fell passionately in love with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, eventually giving birth to nine children. She loved sex and delighted in power. She was outspoken with her ministers, overstepping boundaries and asserting her opinions. After the death of her adored Albert, she began a controversial, intimate relationship with her servant John Brown. She survived eight assassination attempts over the course of her lifetime. And as science, technology, and democracy were dramatically reshaping the world, Victoria was a symbol of steadfastness and security—queen of a quarter of the world’s population at the height of the British Empire’s reach.

Drawing on sources that include revelations about Victoria’s relationship with John Brown, Julia Baird brings vividly to life the fascinating story of a woman who struggled with so many of the things we do today: balancing work and family, raising children, navigating marital strife, losing parents, combating anxiety and self-doubt, finding an identity, searching for meaning. This sweeping, page-turning biography gives us the real woman behind the myth: a bold, glamorous, unbreakable queen—a Victoria for our times, a Victoria who endured.

AND...

Victoria:
by Daisy Goodwin
-Historical Fiction, Victorian
Release date: November 22, 2016
Amazon | Goodreads
“They think I am still a little girl who is not capable of being a Queen.”

Lord Melbourne turned to look at Victoria. “They are mistaken. I have not known you long, but I observe in you a natural dignity that cannot be learnt. To me, ma’am, you are every inch a Queen.”

In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria – sheltered, small in stature, and female – became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Many thought it was preposterous: Alexandrina — Drina to her family — had always been tightly controlled by her mother and her household, and was surely too unprepossessing to hold the throne. Yet from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled everyone: abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.

One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and critical: surely the last man she would want for a husband….

Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.

=====> These both come out on the same day. Getting into the mood of reading about royals.

Waiting on Wednesday - 11.9.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

The Making of Jane Austen
by Devoney Looser
-History, Jane Austen
Release date: July 2, 2017
Amazon | Goodreads
Just how did Jane Austen become the celebrity author and the inspiration for generations of loyal fans she is today? Devoney Looser’s The Making of Jane Austen turns to the people, performances, activism, and images that fostered Austen’s early fame, laying the groundwork for the beloved author we think we know.

Here are the Austen influencers, including her first English illustrator, the eccentric Ferdinand Pickering, whose sensational gothic images may be better understood through his brushes with bullying, bigamy, and an attempted matricide. The daring director-actress Rosina Filippi shaped Austen’s reputation with her pioneering dramatizations, leading thousands of young women to ventriloquize Elizabeth Bennet’s audacious lines before drawing room audiences. Even the supposedly staid history of Austen scholarship has its bizarre stories. The author of the first Jane Austen dissertation, student George Pellew, tragically died young, but he was believed by many, including his professor-mentor, to have come back from the dead.

Looser shows how these figures and their Austen-inspired work transformed Austen’s reputation, just as she profoundly shaped theirs. Through them, Looser describes the factors and influences that radically altered Austen’s evolving image. Drawing from unexplored material, Looser examines how echoes of that work reverberate in our explanations of Austen’s literary and cultural power. Whether you’re a devoted Janeite or simply Jane-curious, The Making of Jane Austen will have you thinking about how a literary icon is made, transformed, and handed down from generation to generation.

=====> I want to satisfy the Jane-curious in me.

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* part of Jane Austen-ish (schedule)

Waiting on Wednesday - 11.2.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

The Amateurs
(The Amateurs #1)
by Sara Shepard
-Mystery, YA
Release date: November 1, 2016
Amazon | Goodreads
As soon as Seneca Frazier sees the post on the Case Not Closed website about Helena Kelly, she’s hooked. Helena’s high-profile disappearance five years earlier is the one that originally got Seneca addicted to true crime. It’s the reason she’s a member of the site in the first place.

So when Maddy Wright, her best friend from the CNC site, invites Seneca to spend spring break in Connecticut looking into the cold case, she immediately packs her bag. But the moment she steps off the train in trendy, glamorous Dexby, things begin to go wrong. Maddy is nothing like she expected, and Helena’s sister, Aerin Kelly, seems completely hostile and totally uninterested in helping with their murder investigation.

But when Brett, another super user from the site, joins Seneca and Maddy in Dexby, Aerin starts to come around. The police must have missed something, and someone in Dexby definitely has information they’ve been keeping quiet.

As Seneca, Brett, Maddy, and Aerin begin to unravel dark secrets and shocking betrayals about the people closest to them, they seem to be on the murderer’s trail at last. But somewhere nearby the killer is watching . . . ready to do whatever it takes to make sure the truth stays buried.

Peekabook:




=====> Looks like a fun new series to get into.

Waiting on Wednesday - 10.26.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

Paris for One
by Jojo Moyes
-Short stories, Contemporary
Release date: October 18, 2016
Amazon | Goodreads
Nell is twenty-six and has never been to Paris. She's never even been on a romantic weekend away—to anywhere—before. Traveling abroad isn't really her thing. But when Nell's boyfriend fails to show up for their mini-vacation, she has the opportunity to prove everyone—including herself—wrong. Alone in Paris, Nell finds a version of herself she never knew existed: independent and intrepid. Could this turn out to be the most adventurous weekend of her life? Funny, charming, and irresistible, Paris for One is vintage Moyes—as are the other stories that round out the collection.

=====> Looks like a good one for snippets of things french.

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* part of October Paris virtual book event (schedule)

Waiting on Wednesday - 10.12.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

News of the World
by Paulette Jiles
-Historical, Western
Release date: October 4, 2016
Amazon | Goodreads
It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.

Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.

Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.

=====> Piqued my interest when it became a National Book Award Finalist–Fiction 2016.

Waiting on Wednesday - 10.5.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

Dear Mr. M
by Herman Koch
-Thriller
Just released: September 6, 2016
Amazon | Goodreads
Once a celebrated writer, M had his greatest success with a suspense novel based on a real-life disappearance. It told the story of a history teacher who went missing one winter after having a brief affair with a beautiful student of his. The teacher was never found. Upon publication, M's novel was a runaway bestseller, one that marked his international breakthrough.

That was years ago, and now M's career is fading. But not when it comes to his bizarre, seemingly timid neighbor who keeps a close eye on him and his wife. Why?

From alternating points of view, where no one is to be trusted, Herman Koch weaves together an intricate tale of a writer in decline, a teenage couple in love, a missing teacher, and a single book that entwines all of their fates. Thanks to M's novel, supposedly a work of fiction, everyone seems to be linked forever, until something unexpected spins the "story" off its rails.

With ever increasing tension, his signature sardonic wit and world-renowned sharp eye for human failings, Herman Koch once again spares nothing and no one in his gripping new novel, a barbed performance that suspends readers in the mysterious space between fact and fiction.

=====> Because I am always up for a good thriller and I Herman's previous book, Summer House with Swimming Pool was a good one.

Waiting on Wednesday - 9.28.16

Waiting on Wednesday
sponsored by Jill at Breaking the Spine (details)
~*~
I'm waiting for...

The Apartment:
A Horror Story
by S.L. Grey
-Horror, Thriller
Release date: October 4, 2016
Amazon | Goodreads
A haunting thriller about a troubled married couple whose vacation to Paris leads them into a nightmare.

Mark and Steph have a relatively happy family with their young daughter in sunny Cape Town until one day when armed men in balaclavas break in to their home. Left traumatized but physically unharmed, Mark and Steph are unable to return to normal and live in constant fear. When a friend suggests a restorative vacation abroad via a popular house swapping website, it sounds like the perfect plan. They find a genial, artistic couple with a charming apartment in Paris who would love to come to Cape Town. Mark and Steph can’t resist the idyllic, light-strewn pictures, and the promise of a romantic getaway. But once they arrive in Paris, they quickly realize that nothing is as advertised. When their perfect holiday takes a violent turn, the cracks in their marriage grow ever wider and dark secrets from Mark's past begin to emerge.

Deftly weaving together two complex and compelling narrators, S. L. Grey builds an intimate and chilling novel of a disintegrating marriage in the wake of a very real trauma. The Apartment is a terrifying and tour-de-force of horror, of psychological thrills, and of haunting suspense.

=====> Sounds soooo good for the Autumn season.