"The Offering" by Angela Hunt~Surrogacy & IVF Story

SUMMARY :

One innocent mistake . . . a lifetime of consequences.

After growing up an only child, Amanda Lisandra wants a big family. But since she and her soldier husband can’t afford to have more children right away, Mandy decides to earn money as a gestational carrier for a childless couple. She loves being pregnant, and while carrying the child, she dreams of having her own son and maybe another daughter. . . .

Just when the nearly perfect pregnancy is about to conclude, unexpected tragedy enters Mandy’s world and leaves her reeling. Devastated by grief, she surrenders the child she was carrying and struggles to regain her emotional equilibrium.

Two years later she studies a photograph of the baby she bore and wonders if the unthinkable has happened—could she have inadvertently given away her own biological child? Over the next few months Mandy struggles to decide between the desires of her grief-stricken heart and what’s best for the little boy she has never known.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Pages:  299  Plus Reading Group Guide
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction/Women's Fiction/Spiritual
Author:  Angela Hunt
Website:  Angela Hunt
Purchase Your Copy:   http://ow.ly/l6HiW


ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Ms Hunt has sold over four million copies of her books worldwide.  She is the bestselling author of more than 100 titles including "The Tale of Three Trees," "The Note," and "The Nativity Story."  Her non-fiction book "Don't Bet Against Me," written with Deanna Favre, spent several weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list.  Angela frequently teaches writing workshops at schools and writers' conferences, and she served as the keynote speaker at an American Christian Fiction Writers' national conference.  She and her husband make their home in Florida.


THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

I had an idea this was going to be light reading when I picked this book up after the very intense, suspenseful reading of Jeffrey Deaver's "The Killing Room."  I thought it would be a relaxing change from that book.  In some ways, it was.  In other ways, it was a stunner.  Pleasantly surprising me, it captured my attention from the beginning and kept me hanging on until the last pages.  This book was every bit as piercing in its own way.  I was swept up in the story.

Ms Hunt is a new author for me.  She writes in a genre I rarely read, but the summary of the story grabbed me.  I'm the grandmother of three invetro fertilization children.  Wonderful, physically beautiful and very smart children, who are as natural and normal as the ordinary child.  I'm a strong believer in the process for those who aren't able to get pregnant otherwise, obviously.  And so, this book was a draw to my attention.

The moral and ethical conflicts the character of Amanda Lisandra faces as she seeks to become an IVF and surrogate parent are current issues.  Her personal struggles, those of her family and the impending, intentional parents were so beautifully handled by Angela Hunt.  So real, it seemed she had been in the process herself.  The novel held me rapt.

This is a book that looks at the questions of having children from all sides:  adoption, IVF, surrogacy, biological, and family inclusion.  Infinitely interesting, it's a book that will capture your heart and imagination.  It will cause you to question your own sense of right and wrong, as well as your moral and ethical stances.

I loved the story and the various characters.  While I found some of the particulars of the greater family reactions to be somewhat unrealistic in light of Amanda's circumstances at times, for the most part the story rang true.

Highly recommended and unusual book!  Amanda Hunt is a fine author of substance. A great book for book group discussions.

5 stars                          Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

"Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage" The "Titanic's" First Class Passengers...by Hugh Brewster

SUMMARY :

THE TITANIC HAS OFTEN BEEN CALLED "AN EXQUISITE MICROCOSM OF THE
Edwardian era,” but until now, her story has not been presented as such.

In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner’s most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing. Employing scrupulous research and featuring 100 rarely seen photographs, he accurately depicts the ship’s brief life and tragic denouement and presents compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers: millionaires John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim; President Taft's closest aide, Major Archibald Butt; writer Helen Churchill Candee; the artist Frank Millet; movie actress Dorothy Gibson; the celebrated couturiere Lady Duff Gordon; aristocrat Noelle, the Countess of Rothes; and a host of other travelers. Through them, we gain insight into the arts, politics, culture, and sexual mores of a world both distant and near to our own. And with them, we gather on the Titanic’s sloping deck on that cold, starlit night and observe their all-too-human reactions as the disaster unfolds. More than ever, we ask ourselves, “What would we have done?”


PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  Broadway Paperbacks/Random House
Pages:  290   (includes postscript)
Genre:  Nonfiction/Historical
Author:  Hugh Brewster
Find out more about the author here:  http://www.hughbrewster.com
Purchase the book here:  Amazon 


ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Being able to create books about history is a dream job for me since I’ve always been enthralled by history. When I was growing up in Georgetown, Ontario, our house was just around the corner from the town library. And I haunted its children’s section—reading sometimes four or five books a week. Historical fiction titles by writers like Geoffrey Trease and Rosemary Sutcliffe were particular favourites. I still treasure a copy of Ernest Thompson Seton’s Two Little Savages that I was given as a prize in a library reading contest in 1960.
Since ours was the only house in the neighbourhoood without a TV antenna on the roof, reading was my primary form of entertainment. My parents thought their four children would read more without a television to distract us. And they were right, we did — though we also showed up at our friends’ houses whenever our favourite shows were on!
Our family had moved to Georgetown from a small town in Scotland in 1956, when I was six years old. When I was thirteen we moved to Guelph, Ontario, and I went to high school and university there. My first real job after graduating with an English degree in 1971 was with Scholastic – then a fairly new publishing company in Canada. As an editor for Scholastic Inc. from 1972 to 1984 in both Toronto and New York, I was involved in the creation of Scholastic’s Canadian children’s publishing program as well as in the selecting of books for Scholastic’s school book clubs. (One of our early discoveries was the teenaged author Gordon Korman and his Bruno and Boots books.)
Between 1984 and 2004 I was the Editorial Director and Publisher of Madison Press Books in Toronto. While there, I helped to create a number of successful books for both adults and young readers including Robert Ballard’s The Discovery the Titanic, that has sold over 1.5 million copies, and TITANIC: An Illustrated History a book that provided inspiration for James Cameron’s epic movie. Among the award-winning children’s books that I edited and compiled are: Polar the Titanic Bear, On Board the Titanic, First to Fly, and Journey to Ellis Island.
The first children’s book that I actually both wrote and compiled was Anastasia’s Album: The Last Tsar’s Youngest Daughter Tells Her Own Story, which was published in 1996 and won a number of awards. In 1997 I wrote the text for Inside the Titanic, which featured amazing cutaway illustrations by Ken Marschall. The next year, with Laurie Coulter, I compiled a book filled with fascinating facts about the Titanic entitled 882 1/2 Amazing Answers to Your Questions About the Titanic. Laurie and I went on to write To Be A Princess in 2001 which was a Silver Birch and Red Cedar nominee. In 2004, the 60th anniversary of D-Day, I wrote On Juno Beach which won the Children’s Literature of Canada Information Book Award in 2005. The success of that book encouraged me to write At Vimy Ridge which appeared in 2007 and won the Norma Fleck Award in 2008.
In 2005, I decided to devote myself to writing full-time and have produced seven books since then: The Other Mozart: The Life of the Famous Chevalier de Saint George published Fall 2006; Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose: The Story of a Painting and Breakout Dinosaurs. DIEPPE: Canada’s Darkest Day of World War II was released in 2009 and was followed by the novel Prisoner of Dieppe in Scholastic’s new I Am Canada series. A second novel, Deadly Voyage appeared in Fall ’11 and for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic, I produced a large adult book entitled Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage in Spring 2012. For more information about all these books, just click on the “Books” link on the left.

For more biographical information about me, go to the CM magazine interview at:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/profiles/brewster.html

For a podcast interview about DIEPPE go to: http://www.justonemorebook.com/



THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

Have you always been fascinated with the sinking of the Titanic like I have?  I've always wondered what it was really like for those on the ship, and I've wondered about the lives of the people themselves.  Hugh Brewster took me on a mystery trip through the real lives of the first class passengers of the Titanic, learning all about them...their quirks, their reputations and the gossip about them.  I loved this book from the moment I opened it.

This doesn't read like a non-fiction book at all.  The stories of the elite passengers as mentioned above in the summary, and the pictures included in the book make it a travelog of fascination.  I was  glued to the book for the first 100 pages without even noticing the passage of time.

Light-hearted and humorous at times, blistering in gossip at others, and infinitely sad in some cases, this is a book that will hold you rapt with attention.

I loved the descriptions of the wealthy and the women...

5 stars absolutely                        Deborah/The Bookish Dame

Read More

iPad CoverCase~The Snugg!

THE SNUGG!!!   I found this darling pink iPad cover/case online recently and love it to pieces.  It's a stand as well and has several handy features:  a stylus holder, two different variations of stand, and it can be turned into an in-car entertainment center.

I loved the pink color, but it comes in a variety of colors.  It also has a lifetime guarantee.  This cover is specifically for the Apple iPad 2, but there is one compatible with both the iPad 2 and iPad 3 Bluetooth Keyboard.

Check out their website at:  http://www.TheSnugg.com

Read More

Book Haul~HUGE!!! Week of May 24th

This was a great week for books of every variety and I was so thrilled to have them!  The weather is heating up here in Naples, the Southwestern part of Florida...although we get the breezes from the Gulf Coast.  It's still beginning to be in the 80 degree category.  Life at the pool is looking very tempting every day.  So, I'm taking my books there to read on a regular basis.  Life couldn't be better!

I have been very blessed this week with books from publishers and authors, and I found one book in our little clubhouse giveaway shop.

Here are the books and summaries:

SUMMARY:

During the 1930s in a small town fighting for its survival, a conflicted new wife seeks to reconcile her artistic ambitions with the binding promises she has made

Fans of Richard Russo, Amor Towles, Sebastian Barry, and Paula McLain will devour this transporting novel about the eternal tug between our duties and our desires, set during in New York City and New England during the Depression and New Deal...

 

This was published by Penguin and received with much gratitude for a review coming this summer!

 

 

 

*SEE TOP IMAGE ABOVE~

 

                          "SURVIVAL LESSONS"

                                                        BY  Alice Hoffman

 

SUMMARY:

 

Fifteen years ago, Alice Hoffman received a diagnosis that changed everything about the life she’d been living. Most significant—aside from the grueling physical ordeal she underwent—was the way it changed how she felt inside and what she thought she ought to be doing with her days. But when she looked around for the book that would show her the way, she could not find it.

Now she’s written the book that she needed to read. In this honest, wise, and upbeat guidebook, Alice Hoffman provides a road map for making one’s life into the very best it can be. As she says, “In many ways I wrote this book to remind myself of the beauty of life, something that’s all too easy to overlook during the crisis of illness or loss. There were many times when I forgot about roses and starry nights. I forgot that our lives are made up of equal parts sorrow and joy, and that it is impossible to have one without the other . . . I wrote to remind myself that in the darkest hour the roses still bloom; the stars still come out at night. And to remind myself that, despite everything that was happening to me, there were still choices I could make.”

Alice Hoffman is one of my very favorite fiction authors of all time.  I've collected all her first edition books which I highly recommend to you.  Such as:

 

 

"Practical Magic" and a plethora of others over her vast career.

 

I'm so excited to have received "Survival Lessons" from Algonquin Press for a review this coming month.

 

 

 

 

This is the one I found at the clubhouse.  It was first published in 2011, but I didn't get around to reading it.  Sounds fantastic!  Published by:  Grove Press/Grove Atlantic

 

SUMMARY: 

 

My name is Dr. Jennifer White. I am sixty-four years old. I have dementia. My son, Mark, is twenty-nine. My daughter, Fiona, twenty-four. A caregiver, Magdalena, lives with me.

 

Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind is a spellbinding novel about the disintegration of a strong woman’s mind and the unhinging of her family. Dr. Jennifer White, recently widowed and a newly retired orthopedic surgeon, is entering the beginning stages of dementia — where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse.

 

As the story opens, Jennifer’s life-long friend and neighbor, Amanda, has been killed, and four fingers surgically removed. Dr. White is the prime suspect in the murder and she herself doesn’t know if she did it or not. Narrated in her voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between this pair — two proud, forceful women who were at times each other’s most formidable adversaries.

 

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

Where Theodora went, trouble followed….

In sixth-century Constantinople, one woman, Theodora, defied every convention and all the odds and rose from common theater tart to empress of a great kingdom, the most powerful woman the Roman Empire would ever know.

 

Published by New American Library, I will be reviewing this one this summer, as well.  An interesting figure in history...  You can pre-order the book now.

 

 

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

A lush, exquisitely rendered meditation on war, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment tells the story of several families, American and Japanese, their loves and infidelities, their dreams and losses, and how they are all connected by one of the most devastating acts of war in human history.

 

In this evocative and thrilling epic novel, fifteen-year-old Yoshi Kobayashi, child of Japan’s New Empire, daughter of an ardent expansionist and a mother with a haunting past, is on her way home on a March night when American bombers shower her city with napalm—an attack that leaves one hundred thousand dead within hours and half the city in ashen ruins.

 

 

Published by WJ Norton & Company, this is a story that I've been dying to read.  I have had a fascination with this time period and subject matter since reading "Hiroshima" many years ago. Can't wait to read this one.

 

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

Skinner founded his career in "asset protection" on fear. To touch anyone under his protection was to invite destruction. A savagely effective methodology, until Skinner's CIA handlers began to fear him as much as his enemies did and banished him to the hinterlands of the intelligence community.

Now, an ornate and evolving cyber-terrorist attack is about to end that long exile. His asset is Jae, a roboticist with a gift for seeing the underlying systems violently shaping a new era of global guerrilla warfare.

 

At the root of it all is a young boy, the innocent seed of a plot grown in the slums of Mumbai. Brought to flower, that plot will tip the balance of world power in a perilous new direction.

 

A combination of Le Carre spycraft with Stephenson techno-philosophy from the novelist hailed by the Washington Post as "the voice of twenty-first century crime fiction," SKINNER is Charlie Huston's masterpiece—a new kind of thriller for a new kind of world.

 

 

Once in a while it's good to have a great CIA novel to chew on!!  This one sounds intriguing...

Sent to me by Mulholland Books/Little, Brown & Co.   My favorite publisher for thriller/suspense novels...

 

 

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

Matt Beaulieu was two years old the first time he held Elle McClure in his arms, seventeen when he first kissed her under a sky filled with shooting stars, and thirty-three when they wed. Now in their late thirties, the deeply devoted couple has everything—except the baby they've always wanted.

 

When a tragic accident leaves Elle brain-dead, Matt is devastated. Though he cannot bear losing her, he knows his wife, a thoughtful and adventurous scientist, feared only one thing—a slow death. Just before Matt agrees to remove Elle from life support, the doctors discover that she is pregnant. Now what was once a clear-cut decision becomes an impossible choice.

 

I found this one at Target and couldn't resist buying it.  I don't know how it got past me before this.

Absolutely amazing summary, don't you think?  I started it last night and should have a review up asap.

 

It's published by William Morrow, and you can buy it from Barnes & Noble or Amazon, as well as Target.

 

 

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

“A heroine every bit as provocative as Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander.” –The Dallas Morning News
Haunted by a life of violence and as proficient with languages as she is with knives, Vanessa Michael Munroe, chameleon and hunter, has built her life on a reputation for getting things done—dangerous and often not-quite-legal things. Born to missionary parents in lawless Africa, taken under the tutelage of gunrunners, and tortured by one of the jungle’s most brutal men, Munroe was forced to do whatever it took to stay alive.

   The ability to survive, fight, adapt, and blend has since taken her across the globe on behalf of corporations, heads of state, and the few private clients who can afford her unique brand of expertise, and these abilities have made her enemies.

   On a busy Dallas street, Munroe is kidnapped by an unseen opponent and thrust into an underground world where women and girls are merchandise and a shadowy figure known as The Doll Maker controls her every move. While trusted friends race to unravel where she is and why she was taken, everything pivots on one simple choice: Munroe must use her unique set of skills to deliver a high-profile young woman into the same nightmare that she once endured, or condemn to torture and certain death the one person she loves above all else.

   Driven by the violence that has made her what she is, cut off from help, and with attempts to escape predicted and prevented, Munroe will hunt for openings, for solutions, and a way to strike back at a man who holds all the cards. Because only one thing is certain: she cannot save everyone.
In this high-octane thriller for fans of Lee Child, Stieg Larsson, and Robert Ludlum's Bourne trilogy, Vanessa Michael Munroe will have to fight fast, smart and furiously to overcome a dangerous nemesis and deliver her trademark brand of justice.

 

  
Oh, I can hardly wait to open this one for reading!  I loved the "Girl With The Dragon Tatoo" series, and this one sounds like a close call to that type of book.  Love the books Mulholland chooses to publish.  Thanks, Mulholland for keeping me current!!

SUMMARY:

At the close of the Victorian Era, society still expected middle-class women to be "the angels of the house," even as a select few strived to become something more. In this time of change, Emeline Evans dreamed of becoming a nurse. But when her father dies unexpectedly, Emeline sacrifices her ambitions and rescues her family from destitution by marrying John Dorr, a reserved lawyer who can provide for her family.
 

John moves Emeline to the remote Missouri town of Labellum and into an unusual house where her sorrow and uneasiness edge toward madness. Furniture twists and turns before her eyes, people stare out at her from empty rooms, and the house itself conspires against her. The doctor diagnoses hysteria, but the treatment merely reinforces the house's grip on her mind.

I predict this will be a book on everyone's reading list this summer.  It's a beautiful cover, and its story is a modern-day take on Perkins-Gillman's "The Yellow Wallpaper!"  I'm chomping at the bit to start it next week for a review. 

SUMMARY:

I wake with a start from a bad dream. Anxiety clutches at my chest. Something’s gone . . . something’s missing . . . Beth . . . Always Beth . . .

When Geniver Loxley lost her daughter at birth eight years ago, her world stopped… and never fully started again. Mothers with strollers still make her flinch; her love of writing has turned into a half-hearted teaching career; and she and her husband, Art, have slipped into the kind of rut that seems inescapable. For Art, the solution is simple: Have another child to replace Beth. For Gen, the thought of replacing her first child feels cruel, nearly unbearable. A part of her will never let go of Beth, no matter how much she needs to move on.

But then a stranger shows up on their doorstep, telling Gen the very thing she’s always desperately longed to hear: that her daughter was not stillborn, but was taken away as a healthy infant. That Beth is still out there, somewhere, waiting to be found. A fissure suddenly opens up in Gen’s carefully reconstructed life, letting in a flood of unanswerable questions. How could this possibly be true? Where is Beth? And why is Art so reluctant to get involved?

Creepy and cruel...This one sounds perfect for a stormy night, to me.  Can't wait to read it.  Sent by my friends at St. Martin's Press, whom I thank tremendously.  I hope to review this one in August.



Now here are some of my Netgalley choices for the summer:

"Amity and Sorrow" by Peggy Riley

"Flora" by Gail Godwin

"I'll Be Seeing You" by Suzanne Hayes & Loretta Nyhan

"The Burgess Boys" by Elizabeth Strout

 

 SUMMARY:

 

A page-turning literary debut about a mother and her two teenage daughters escaping a cult and starting over.

Two sisters sit in the backseat of a car, bound at the wrists by a strip of white cloth. Their mother, Amaranth, drives for days without pause, desperate to get away from the husband she fears will follow them to the earth's end. Her daughters, Amity and Sorrow, cannot comprehend why they're fleeing or fathom what exists outside their father's polygamous compound...

THAT'S IT FOR ME!    TELL ME ONE OR TWO BOOKS YOU'RE READING THIS SUMMER...


DEBORAH/THEBOOKISHDAME

Read More

"Black Venus" by James MacManus~Baudelaire in Love

SUMMARY :

A vivid novel of Charles Baudelaire and his lover Jeanne Duval, the Haitian cabaret singer who inspired his most famous and controversial poems, set in nineteenth-century Paris.

For readers who have been drawn to The Paris Wife, Black Venus captures the artistic scene in the great French city decades earlier, when the likes of Dumas and Balzac argued literature in the cafes of the Left Bank. Among the bohemians, the young Charles Baudelaire stood out—dressed impeccably thanks to an inheritance that was quickly vanishing. Still at work on the poems that he hoped would make his name, he spent his nights enjoying the alcohol, opium, and women who filled the seedy streets of the city.

One woman would catch his eye—a beautiful Haitian cabaret singer named Jeanne Duval. Their lives would remain forever intertwined thereafter, and their romance would inspire his most infamous poems—leading to the banning of his masterwork, Les Fleurs du Mal, and a scandalous public trial for obscenity.

James MacManus's Black Venus re-creates the classic Parisian literary world in vivid detail, complete with not just an affecting portrait of the famous poet but also his often misunderstood, much-maligned muse.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
Published by:  Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press
Pages:  352
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Author:  James MacManus
Find out more on his website:  James MacManus


ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

James MacManus was born in London in 1943, educated at Westminster School and graduated from St Andrews University in 1966.He broke his Guardian reading parents’ hearts when he joined the Daily Express in Manchester as a trainee reporter that year. He redeemed himself when he moved to The Guardian in 1972, working first as a reporter in the London office and then as a foreign correspondent in France, Africa and the Middle East for twelve years. The bulk of this time was spent in what was then Rhodesia where he was based as the Guardian’s Africa correspondent from 1974-80. In 1985 he joined the Diplomatic staff of the Daily Telegraph in London. He joined the Times in November 1992 as Assistant Editor (Home) and took over as Managing Editor of The Times in September 1996. He became Managing Director of The Times Supplements in April 1997, a company that published the Times Educational Supplement, the Times Higher Education Supplement and the Times Literary Supplement (TLS). Following heart surgery in 2009 James relinquished many of his Corporate Affairs duties to concentrate on speech writing and managing the TLS. In 2006 after a gestation of almost 20 years a film script James had written finally made it to the screen under the title The Children of Huang Shi. The film takes place at the height of the Sino-Japanese war in the 1940s and tells the story of 65 Chinese school children who were recued from certain death by George Hogg, a young Englishman who had been caught up in the conflict. To escape the advancing Japanese forces in the bitter winter of 1944 Hogg took the children in a convoy of mule carts over the highest mountains in China to Shandan in the remote North West. There he died in 1945 of tetanus aged 30. MacManus heard about Hogg’s brief and heroic life while working in Beijing as a reporter in 1985 and his subsequent news story in a London paper attracted the attention of Hollywood. The film starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and directed by Roger Spottiswoode was released in 2006. James MacManus has also written a book about Hogg’s life called ‘Ocean Devil’ which was published in March 2008. In 2010 James’s first novel was published by Harper Collins in |London. On the Broken Shore won critical acclaim and is to be published by Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St Martins Press in New York. The book will be re-titled the Language of the Sea. Thomas Dunne is a senior and widely respected publisher in the US and he said of On The Broken Shore: "What an odd, brilliant, shocking, moving, clever, perceptive book." James MacManus has been married twice and has three children. He is currently separated from his second wife. MR. MACMANUS DISCUSSES BAUDELAIRE : "Charles Baudelaire wrote the finest poetry in the French language, the first modern poetry in any language and helped shape the literature of the 21st century. His reputation rests on a slim volume of poems Les Fleurs du Mal several of which were banned after an obscenity trial. For most of his adult life he lived with, and was obsessed by, a woman to whom he dedicated his poetry, who inspired his every artistic endeavour and who was loathed by his family, friends and his publisher. He called her his Black Venus. Jeanne Duval was a striking Creole from Haiti, with a voluptuous figure, an addiction to alcohol and opium and, being barely literate, scant regard for her lover's poetry. Although Baudelaire's muse and mistress, she took her own lovers and became infamous in a decidedly decadent society. As a result rising artists such as Manet and indeed Baudelaire himself, painted her portrait. This book tells the true story of a relationship that puzzled Paris society in the mid 19th century has pre-occupied critics ever since: What secret lay at the heart of Charles Baudelaire's obsessive love for a muse that destroyed him.? Jeanne Duval betrayed Baudelaire in every way. Her extravagance drove him into debt, she turned him into an opium addict and slept with his friends. Yet without her he could not write a word. Towards the end of his life Baudelaire said :"I only have had only two responsibilities in my life. To my art and to my Black Venus."" James MacManus

THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

This is one of those books I was dying to love. Baudelaire is my favorite French poet. I adore his poems, his intensity, his ardent way of expressing life and love. I was hoping for so much in this story of his muse, Jeanne Duval. Sadly, it was only a lukewarm representation of what must have been a very hot obsession. I was disappointed from the get-go.
 

While details of their lives, surroundings and relationship were set within the novel at the correct times and places, it was such that I felt I was reading a text book that had been "fancied up;" or made more palatable with warm icing. The book lacked heart and real substance. It felt flat. The characters were not well-defined or alive. While I wanted to care about them, I found I couldn't. They were without life and too devoid of definition to become captivating. Both Baudelaire and Jeanne Duval were not at all as charming as one would hope.
 

The surroundings and descriptive details that might have made Paris come alive were weak. There was very little atmosphere. I never really got a sense of place although the characters went to some exotic locations that would have been fun to have experienced vicariously! It felt as if the author was so stuck in detailing the history, he lacked imagination.
 

As far as a historical perspective of Baudelaire and his beautiful, irreverent muse Jeanne Duval goes, this is a book that did answer some questions about their relationship and what drove his genius and madness. It was a book that filled in the gaps on what their lives might have been like and how society might have reacted to them as a couple. The research seemed strong, in essence.
 

What disappointed was that it was not a captivating work of historical fiction. It did not flow in story form. There was a lack of description on all counts. The characters, as I've said, were virtually one dimensional. Dialog was stilted. And, the book on whole was not compelling or exciting.

 

 

Beautiful cover, fantastic idea...but no follow through on this one. A missed opportunity... I'm sad.
 

3 stars for a fair story Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

"Murder As A Fine Art" by David Morrell~Thriller!

SUMMARY :

GASLIT LONDON IS BROUGHT TO ITS KNEES IN DAVID MORRELL'S BRILLIANT HISTORICAL THRILLER.

Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, is the major suspect in a series of ferocious mass murders identical to ones that terrorized London forty-three years earlier.

The blueprint for the killings seems to be De Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." Desperate to clear his name but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his devoted daughter Emily and a pair of determined Scotland Yard detectives.

In Murder as a Fine Art, David Morrell plucks De Quincey, Victorian London, and the Ratcliffe Highway murders from history. Fogbound streets become a battleground between a literary star and a brilliant murderer, whose lives are linked by secrets long buried but never forgotten.

Praise for MURDER AS A FINE ART

“Murder As a Fine Art by David Morrell is a masterpiece—I don’t use that word lightly—a fantastic historical thriller, beautifully written, intricately plotted, and populated with unforgettable characters. It brilliantly recreates the London of gaslit streets, fogs, hansom cabs, and Scotland Yard. If you liked The Alienist, you will absolutely love this book. I was spellbound from the first page to last.”

—Douglas Preston, #1 bestselling author of The Monster of Florence

“London 1854, noxious yellow fogs, reeking slums, intrigues in high places, murders most foul, but instead of Sherlock Holmes solving crimes via the fine art of deduction, we have the historical English Opium-Eater himself, Thomas De Quincey. David Morrell fans -- and they are Legion -- can look forward to celebrating Murder As a Fine Art as one of their favorite author's strongest and boldest books in years.”

—Dan Simmons, New York Times bestselling author of Drood and The Terror

“Morrell’s use of De Quincey’s life is amazing. I literally couldn’t put it down: I felt as though I were in Dickens when he described London’s fog and in Wilkie Collins when we entered Emily’s diary. There were beautiful touches all the way through. Murder As a Fine Art is a triumph.”

—Robert Morrison, author of The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey

“I enjoyed Murder As a Fine Art immensely. I admired the way Morrell deftly took so much material from De Quincey's life and wove it into the plot, and also how well he created a sense of so many dimensions of Victorian London. Quite apart from its being a gripping thriller!”

—Grevel Lindop, author of The Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Mulholland Books
Hardcover; 368p
ISBN-10: 0316216798
Purchase this novel:  Amazon


ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

David Morrell is a Canadian novelist from Kitchener, Ontario, who has been living in the United States for a number of years. He is best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood, which would later become a successful film franchise starring Sylvester Stallone. More recently, he has been writing the Captain America comic books limited-series The Chosen.

For more information on David Morrell and his novels, please visit the official website. You can also follow David on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.


INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR !!!!

The Bookish Dame is priviledged to bring this interview today with this formitable author.  Thank you, Mr. Morrell for agreeing to stop by...

Here are some simple questions for you:

1)        Tell us something about yourself, please.  How do most people describe you?

 

I like to joke that I’m a mild-mannered former professor who loves to write suspense.  I have a Ph D in American literature from Penn State. I was a full professor in the English department at the University of Iowa. To some, it’s a contradiction that an author with my background loves to write thrillers and mysteries, but to me, it makes perfect sense. For one thing, the genre offers a wonderful opportunity to reach a wide range of readers. For another, I think that thrillers and mysteries offer a wonderful way in which to experiment.  There are no inferior genres, only inferior writers in those genres. My childhood was difficult. My father was a pilot who died in combat. My mother couldn’t take care of me and earn a living, so she put me in an orphanage. Later she remarried, but my stepfather didn’t like children.  There was a lot of fighting in the house.  In fear, I slept under my bed, where I told stories to myself. They were adventure stories in which I was the hero. It’s no wonder that I grew up to write similar stories.

 

2)       Where is your favorite place to write?  Any special gimmicks, writing tools or keepsakes that you keep near you when you write…I hear authors can be superstitious!

 

In my Iowa City home, I literally wrote in a closet, but in my home in Santa Fe, NM, I have a separate officer with two desks.  At one, I write on a computer. At the other, I read the printouts of my work, trying to separate the experiences. Sometimes, to make a page look fresher, I change fonts. I try to write 5 pages a day. These are revised the next morning, and then I continue with the story. By the time a project is finished, I have probably made changes to each pages 20 times. I can write pretty much anywhere—even on planes. But when I’m away from home, my writing tends to be devoted to small items such as introductions or else to reading books for research. 

 

3)       Who first told you could write well, and how did it affect you?

 

When I was 17, I made the decision to become a writer because of a television series that I’ll talk about later. I became an English major in college.  Then I realized that I would probably need a day job because writers don’t earn much, so I went to Penn State for my MA and Ph D and became a professor. While I was a student at Penn State, I met a professional writer who’d written science fiction during the golden age of the 1950s. His pen name was William Tenn. His actual name was Philip Klass. I persuaded him to give me private lessons. My early efforts, which were bad imitations of James Joyce, met with his disapproval. But with determination, I persisted, finding my home in suspense fiction, and one day, after a year, he told me that I might have a career. I dedicated my first novel to him.  That book was published when I was 29, twelve years after I decided to become a writer. 

 

4)       Which contemporary authors do you most admire?

 

I love the work of my friend Dan Simmons, who has written in just about every genre, including science fiction, and received numerous awards. His energetic style matches his active mind and fascinating stories. Some of his best books are HYPERION, CARRION COMFORT, and THE TERROR (about Shackleford’s disastrous Arctic expedition). His DROOD (about Wilkie Collins, the friend of Dickens and the author of THE WOMAN IN WHITE) is a Victorian thriller that your club members might like to look at after they read MURDER AS A FINE ART. 

 

"Drood" is a favorite of mine, too.  Dan Simmons is a venerable writer. 

 

5)       Which are your favorite classical authors?

 

Because I was an American literature professor, I keep going back to the great authors I taught: Hawthorne and Melville, Hemingway and Faulkner. I am very fond of Henry James, who taught me a lot about narrative viewpoint. And I’m especially fond of Edith Wharton’s inside perspective of old New York in THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. The classical thriller author I most admire is Geoffrey Household, whose ROGUE MALE in 1939 described a British big-game hunter’s effort to stalk Hitler just before the start of WWII. It’s masterful, with nature scenes that feel as if William Wordsworth wrote thrillers.

 

Personal favorite authors of mine!  I knew from your writing we had something in common...

 

6)       Jump into any book~which character would you be?

 

I’m reminded of the first sentence of Dicken’s DAVID COPPERFIELD. “Whether I shall turn out to be the main character of my life story or only a minor character, these pages shall reveal.”  I love that idea—that it’s possible to be a minor character in our lives. I have met people who are indeed, tragically, minor characters in their live stories. But I hope that hasn’t been the case with me. I am by nature a teacher and a pre-reactor (if that’s a word). I look ahead and try to do things that make me a fuller person.  

 

7)       If you could have 5 historical people to dinner, who would they be?  What would you have to eat?

 

Because MURDER AS A FINE ART is about the real-life 1800s author Thomas De Quincey, he would be at the top of my list. He was the first person to write about drug addiction in his infamous CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, at a time when the concept of addiction didn’t exist.  He invented the word “subconscious” and anticipated Freud’s psychoanalytic theories by a half-century. He also invented the true-crime genre in the third installment of his essay “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” He influenced Edgar Allan Poe who in turned influenced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes, so he stands at the start of detective fiction. Fascinating. De Quincey’s conversations were said to be so entertaining that people wanted to hold him prisoner and bring him out like a toy when they were bored.  He was an intimate friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge and had many interesting stories to tell about them.  He so admired Wordsworth that he moved close to Wordsworth in the Lake District of England. After the poet moved from Dove Cottage, De Quincey moved in so that he could sleep and eat where Wordsworth had eaten and slept. In MURDER AS A FINE ART, I also write about the most powerful and influential politician of his day, Lord Palmerston, who was war secretary, foreign secretary, home secretary, and prime minister.  His personality was so engaging that he would liven any dinner party. After De Quincey and Lord Palmerston, I would include Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. (Although I’m a Victorianist these days, my college roots are in American culture.)  Finally, having mentioned her already, I’ll mention her again: Edith Wharton.

 

Oh, how I'd love to be at that dinner party...  Fascinating company.  Would we ever eat a bite?

 

8)       Favorite two tv shows:

 

I mentioned that a television series changed my life when I was 17. Premiering in 1960, ROUTE 66 was about 2 young men in a Corvette convertible who travel across the United States in search of America and themselves.  Influenced by Jack Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD, its theme was searching for and pursuing one’s destiny. Every episode was filmed on location across the U.S. A mixture of action and ideas, the scripts by Stirling Silliphant made me want to do what Silliphant did. I wrote him a letter (a kind librarian gave me the address for Screen Gems, the show’s production company). A week later, Silliphant wrote back and encouraged me. Eventually we became friends.  We even worked together when my novel THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE became the only television miniseries to be broadcast after a Super Bowl. Silliphant was the executive producer. He received an Oscar for the screenplay adaptation of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT.  For me, no other series can compare. But I’ll mention a few current favorites: MAD MEN, BREAKING BAD, and SMASH (the latter because in my youth I considered a theatrical career).

 

Very surprising choices, David.  Although, I can see MADMEN being attractive to you, absolutely. 

9)       Favorite movie of all time:

 

This is always a tough one. I’ll choose the first title that pops into my head, which is indeed probably my favorite: Alfred Hitchcock’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST, a nearly perfect thriller.

 

10)   Are you working on a new book?

 

Everyone who has read MURDER AS A FINE ART has insisted that I write a follow-up, which is what I’m working on now.  The working title is THE INSPECTOR OF THE DEAD, and there’s a chance that it will come out next year (2014). In my 41 years as a published author, I wrote few sequels, but Thomas De Quincey is so fascinating that I have plenty more to say about him and the Victorian era.

 

Bravo!  Can't wait to read this sequel.

 

11)   Anything else I forgot to ask you?

 

Research is very important to me. For books with contemporary subjects, I go to many of the places that I write about. I interview people. I try to do what my characters are doing.  Thus, for a wilderness survival novel, I lived for 35 days in the mountains of Wyoming.  I once spent a fascinating 5 days at the Bill Scott raceway in West Virginia, learning to handle cars the way Secret Service agents do. For a novel about the famous Marfa lights in West Texas (THE SHIMMER), I researched airplane sequences until I became a private pilot.  But there isn’t any way to do hands-on research for 1854 London.  I spent two years reading everything I could about the period until I felt that I could convince readers they were truly on those fogbound streets, hearing unfamiliar words like dollymop, dustman, and dipper.  When I knew how much a middle- or upper-class woman’s clothes weighed (37 pounds), I knew I was prepared. I read and re-read the thousands of pages that Thomas De Quincey wrote until I felt that I was channeling him. An editor joked that I was a ventriloquist for him.

 

An amazing and life-long adventure of a life!  Thank you for sharing with us.  I look forward to talking again with you in the future.  If only I could capture and  hold you hostage in my living room for a dinner party to have you tell me all you know about De Quincey and some of the authors you mentioned, I would be in heaven.

 

THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

Rarely have I been so entranced by a book from the introduction to the end.  There was not a moment's break in the action and mystery of this novel.  Thrilling and suspenseful, dark and blood-curdling, this is a book that will live in my mind for years to come. David Morrell is an author of pure genius.  I wonder if he couldn't become one of the world's best detectives himself.

The character who drives the novel, Thomas De Quincey, is brilliant in this role, as well as being a bit frightening, himself, in his struggles with opium addiction.  Brooding and obsessed by the devious murderer who has London thrown into a panic, his focus is deadly.  He is a culled from life figure that reaches out to us with an icy but mesmerizing grip.

Obviously, characterization and mood are strong points for Mr. Morrell.  His London is the smoky Victorian set we've come to love in other formidable books of this era. All of his characters are strong and clinching set in the gas-light era.  They held me in suspense with both their deductions and plots.  The murderer is the like of which I haven't encountered in all my suspense/thriller readings.  He's brutal and conniving like a consciousless beast.  Absolutely horrific, cold and spell-binding in Morrell's capable hands!

I can only tell you this is a book you have to read this year.  It's a rare find.  The action and brooding atmosphere will keep you up for hours into the night.  David Morrell is an extraordinary author in this genre.  Masterful and menacing story!  I highly recommend it.

 

5 stars plus                  Deborah/TheBookishDame

 

 

*NOTE:   This review and interview are brought to you in cooperation with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours:

Please follow the tour, finding other reviews and commentary by clicking this link:

 http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/murderasafineartvirtualtour/

 

 

 

Read More

"Call Me Zelda" by Erika Robuck~ Brilliant!

SUMMARY :

Everything in the ward seemed different now, and I no longer felt its calming presence. The Fitzgeralds stirred something in me that had been dormant for a long time, and I was not prepared to face it....
From New York to Paris, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald reigned as king and queen of the Jazz Age, seeming to float on champagne bubbles above the mundane cares of the world. But to those who truly knew them, the endless parties were only a distraction from their inner turmoil, and from a love that united them with a scorching intensity.

When Zelda is committed to a Baltimore psychiatric clinic in 1932, vacillating between lucidity and madness in her struggle to forge an identity separate from her husband, the famous writer, she finds a sympathetic friend in her nurse, Anna Howard. Held captive by her own tragic past, Anna is increasingly drawn into the Fitzgeralds’ tumultuous relationship. As she becomes privy to Zelda’s most intimate confessions, written in a secret memoir meant only for her, Anna begins to wonder which Fitzgerald is the true genius. But in taking ever greater emotional risks to save Zelda, Anna may end up paying a far higher price than she intended....


PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  New American Library/Penguin Group
Pages:  319 and Reader's Guide
Genre:  Fiction
Author:  Erika Robuck
Website:  http://www.erikarobuck.com


MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

 

Erika Robuck self-published her first novel, RECEIVE ME FALLING. Her novel, HEMINGWAY’S GIRL (NAL/Penguin), was a Target Emerging Author Pick, a Vero Beach Bestseller, and has been sold in two foreign markets to date. Her next novel, CALL ME ZELDA (NAL/Penguin), publishes on May 7, 2013, and begins in the years “after the party” for Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

 

 

Erika writes about and reviews historical fiction at her blog, Muse, and is a contributor to popular fiction blog, Writer Unboxed. She is also a member of the Historical Novel Society and the Hemingway Society.

 

 

 

 

 

THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

 

Absolutely brilliant novel!  I was completely spell-bound from the moment I opened the book.  It came to my doorstep at 4PM and I was up all night reading.  Just bowled me over...

This is a book I carried to the pool with me the next day and ignored all my friends for!  Telling...

 

I love Zelda in any size, shape or form, but Erika Robuck captured her in a most sympathetic way.  She was utterly breath-taking.  Gorgeous and tragic.  Her spirit lifted from the pages.  I felt as if Zelda was in the room with me as I read.  This is a powerful story that gives credence to the life and emotional struggles of a very gifted woman of a particular time in our American history.  Erika Robuck really did justice to her.

 

The use of Anna, the psychiatric nurse and companion to Zelda was genius in the telling of this story.  It added an avenue for spiritual and relationship depth that made the story rich.  The elements of loss and grief were dealt with from several different angles making this a singularly strong novel, and very moving.  Anna is a character who splits one's heart in two.  She's so driven by her sacrificing love for Zelda.

 

This book grips you and haunts long after the last pages are read.  Visual and visceral.  You will clearly see the ghostly figures of Zelda and Scott dancing away in the night as you read.  One of the best books I've read so far this year.

 

I soundly recommend you get a copy asap!!   A must read if you plan to see (or have just seen)  "The Great Gatsby."  It may give you a pause for thought....

 

 

 

5 Stars!                          Deborah/TheBookishDame

 

 

 

 



Read More