"Amity & Sorrow" by Peggy Riley~Absorbing Story

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. When an exhausted Amaranth crashes their car in rural Oklahoma, rescue arrives in the form of Bradley, a farmer not unfamiliar with loss and uncertain futures. At first mistrustful of the strange, prayerful trio, Bradley allows his abiding tolerance to get the best of him, and the four become a new kind of family.

Full of achingly beautiful prose, AMITY & SORROW is a mesmerizing debut about belief, redemption, and the dark heart of extreme faith.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  Little, Brown & Co./Back Bay
Pages:  308   Plus Conversation with Peggy Riley
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Author:  Peggy Riley
Find her:  http://www.peggyriley.com


ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Peggy Riley is a writer and playwright. She recently won a Highly Commended prize in the 2011 Bridport Prize. Her short fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio and has been published in "New Short Stories 4", Mslexia Magazine, and as an app on Ether Books. Her plays have been commissioned and produced off-West End, regionally and on tour. She has been a festival producer, a bookseller, and writer-in-residence at a young offender's prison. Originally from Los Angeles, Peggy now lives on the North Kent coast in Britain. She is currently working on her second novel, which will be set in the women's internment camp on the Isle of Man during WWII.

 
THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

This is one of those books in my stack it's taken me a while to get around to.  I've been waiting for the mood to hit me and a space of time to be able to read it.  I'm so glad the time was now.  It just seemed to fit with some things I've been hearing on tv and thinking about in the world around me these days.

Peggy Riley is a strong writer with the quiet voice of a sledge hammer wrapped in quilting!  Her prose is powerful and fraught with so much symbolism and meaning, it would take a book group to ferret it all out and to enjoy every morsel.  It was a great deal of fun for me as a single reader, as well.
But I stopped several times thinking I'd love to discuss the novel and certain situations with a friend or two.

It's often been a wonder to me that so many women have found themselves caught in the web of polygamy and abuse.  But Ms Riley works to define the minds of her characters, and the insidiousness of a lie from a man whom a woman or child wants to put all her trust and hopes in for salvation.  When the "safe place" becomes an inferno, however, all bets are off.  And herein lies the story of "Amity & Sorrow."

Riley does a fantastic job of creating the place and time of this novel.  She also creates strong and believable characters who stand up under the difficult circumstances in which she places them.  I felt the psychology of her characters rang true to this story, making it all the more an absorbing one to read.  Sorrow in particular grabbed my heart and engendered strong reactions from me...mostly negative!

I loved this book and highly recommend it.  It's nicely out in paperback these days which won't put a hole in the budget.  Any book group would find it a very compelling read to discuss.

5 stars                            Deborah/TheBookishDame

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"Saturday Night Widows" by Becky Aikman~A New Perspective on Life!

 

SUMMARY :

 

Six marriages, six heartbreaks, one shared beginning.

In her forties – a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role – Becky Aikman struggled to make sense of her place in an altered world. In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, she explores surprising new discoveries about how people experience grief and transcend loss and, following her own remarriage, forms a group with five other young widows to test these unconventional ideas. Together, these friends summon the humor, resilience, and striving spirit essential for anyone overcoming adversity.

Meet the Saturday Night Widows: ringleader Becky, an unsentimental journalist who lost her husband to cancer; Tara, a polished mother of two, whose husband died in the throes of alcoholism after she filed for divorce; Denise, a widow of just five months, now struggling to get by; Marcia, a hard-driving corporate lawyer; Dawn, an alluring self-made entrepreneur whose husband was killed in a sporting accident, leaving two small children behind; and Lesley, a housewife who returned home one day to find that her husband had committed suicide.

The women meet once a month, and over the course of a year, they strike out on ever more far-flung adventures, learning to live past the worst thing they thought could happen. They share emotional peaks and valleys – dating, parenting, moving, finding meaningful work, and reinventing themselves – while turning traditional thinking about loss and recovery upside down. Through it all runs the story of Aikman's own journey through grief and her love affair with a man who tempts her to marry again. In a transporting story of what friends can achieve when they hold each other up, Saturday Night Widows is a rare book that will make you laugh, think, and remind yourself that despite the utter unpredictability and occasional tragedy of life, it is also precious, fragile, and often more joyous than we recognize.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
Published by:  Crown Publishing Group
Pages:  352
Genre:  Non-Fiction, Women's
Author:  Becky Aikman
Author's Website:  Becky Aikman


ABOUT THE GROUP :

Meet the Saturday Night Widows: ringleader Becky, an unsentimental
journalist who lost her husband to cancer; Tara, a polished mother of
two, whose husband died in the throes of alcoholism after she filed
for divorce; Denise, a widow of just five months, now struggling to
get by; Marcia, a hard-driving corporate lawyer; Dawn, an alluring
self-made entrepreneur whose; husband was killed in a sporting
accident, leaving two small children behind; and Lesley, a housewife
who returned home one day to find that her husband had committed
suicide.
*NOTE:  I was delighted to find this picture of the group on Becky's website! 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

A graduate of the School of Journalism
at Columbia University, former reporter
for Newsday and writer and editor at
Buisness Week. She formed the Saturday
Night Widows with five other women who
lost their husbands at a young age. They
set out to reinvent themselves through
friendship, laughter and shared adventure.
Becky currently lives in New York City.

BOOK TRAILER :

THE DAME REVIEWS :

In 1983 I was widowed.  A mother with three small children under the age of 9, I was completely devastated.  I had been married at 19, and my husband was the center of my life.  In those days, there were no other 32 year old widows that could be found.  The only other widows our local hospice knew of or could help me connect with were 55 and older. I couldn't relate to them. I felt alone and desolate.  There were literally no other young women around my age I came across or could find who could relate to my situation in years.  And, believe me, no one around my age wanted to discuss being widowed with me!  Friends and family soon wanted me to move on and "adjust."

When I heard of Becky's book , I was stunned.  How could someone have found so many young widows in such a short distance?!  I couldn't wait to get my hands on the book.  After all these years, I still was longing to hear from other widows about their experiences. 

"Saturday Night Widows" was such a comfort to me in many ways.  While it read like an adventure story, it also brought up profound questions and answers.  For me, it touched on feelings I had experienced and still have shadowings of  30 years after my young husband died of cancer.  In many cases, I felt the sadness rise up again as I was reminded of things through the widows in the group, but this time there was affirmation and emotional release.  I had moments of insight as well as laughter reading along with them.

I can testify to the validity of this small group and their work.  What a beautiful friendship of women.  What a spectacular support they gave to each other!  Being widowed in isolation makes the process so much more painful, it seems.  I commend Ms Aikman for the courage and the conviction it took to seek others out and to work on putting together and keeping her group moving in a positive direction.

This is a book so profound it will touch every woman's heart.  Not just for the widowed; it reflects the central themes of courage and rejuvenation in all women's lives.  It also tells of the kindness and nurturing qualities of those who reach out to others even in the midst of their own pain. 

Being widowed is by far the most excruciating thing that's ever happened to me, both physically and emotionally.  If Ms Aikman's book can shed light and encourage others to form such groups as hers, I believe it will soothe new widows in revolutionary ways.  I wish I'd had such a support system of friends and widows in my day.

This is an exceptional book which I highly recommend to all women.  You'll love the joy, the tears, and the strength you'll gain from the reading.  I did.

5 stars         Deborah/TheBookishDame

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GIVEAWAY!! "Forgotten" by Catherine McKenzie~Unforgettable!

SUMMARY :

Emma Tupper is a dedicated lawyer with a bright future. But when she takes a month-long leave of absence to go on an African vacation, she ends up facing unexpected consequences. After she falls ill and spends six months trapped in a remote village thanks to a devastating earthquake, Emma returns home to discover that her friends, boyfriend, and colleagues thought she was dead—and that her life has moved on without her.

As she struggles to re-create her old life, throwing herself into solving a big case for a client and trying to reclaim her beloved apartment from the handsome photographer who assumed her lease, everyone around her thinks she should take the opportunity to change. But is she willing to sacrifice her job, her relationships, and everything else she worked so hard to build?

In Forgotten, Catherine McKenzie tweaks a classic tale of discovering who we really are when everything that brings meaning to our lives is lost.

PARTICULARS OF THIS BOOK :
Publisher:  William Morris/Harper Collins Publishing
Pages:  437
Genre:  General Fiction/Adult
Author:  Catherine McKenzie
Learn More About the Book:  http://www.catherinemckenzie.com
Purchase here:   Barnes & Noble  and  Amazon
Other book by Ms McKenzie:  "Spin"  reviewed here!  Seach, please!


Video Trailer!!!!  Meet Catherine McKenzie...

 

 

 

The Dame Interviews Catherine McKenzie!!

 

 

Hello, Catherine.  Welcome to A Bookish Libraria!

I’m so delighted you’ve agreed to allow us to get to know you and your book better.  I have several questions!  So exciting to have you here...

 

1) First of all, please tell us a special something about what makes you “tick.”  When you aren’t writing, what are you doing?

 

There’s a long list of things I’m doing when I’m not writing – I work as a lawyer – but one thing that makes me tick is running. And TV.

 

2) You chose a specific place and time to write about, what made you choose it?

 

The inspiration for Forgotten was a story I heard about a woman who’d been stuck in Africa for a period of time so that is what inspired me to set part of the book in Africa.

 

3) Bronte or Austen?  Hemingway or Hawthorne?  Why?

 

Austen, definitely. Austen makes me smile and nod. I find Bronte (all of them) really bleak. Hemingway. He’s a master at dialogue.

 

4) In your opinion, what makes a book a great one?

 

When you can’t put it down. When you’re sorry it ends. When you can’t wait to read it again.

 

5) Which author(s) most influenced your love of books? 

 

L.M. Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder – I read and read and read them as a child.

 

6) Read any good books in the past 6 months?

 

Yes, several! Loved Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, Defending Jacob by William Landy, When She Wokeby Hillary Jordan

 

("Defending Jacob" reviewed here earlier this year.  Search on sidebar!!)

 

7) Choose 4 guests from any era for dinner.  Who would they be and what would you choose for a topic of conversation?

 

Austen, L.M. Montgomery, Bob Dylan, John Lennon. I’d just let the conversation flow.

 

8) There’s a song that goes along with your book, what is it?

 

Leaving on a Jet Plane.

 

9) If you could cast your book for a movie, who would you choose for your 2 main characters?

 

I can never answer this question! Seriously, I don’t have a visual image of the characters and prefer to leave it to people’s imagination.

 

10) Worst habit you have while writing books?

 

Not outlining enough.

 

11) How much research did you do before and during writing?

 

Quite a bit on Africa to develop the country where it was set.

 

12) Psychologists tell us the thing we think we’d most like to grow up to be when we’re ten years old is our avocation.  What did you want to be?

 

An astronaut.

 

Thank you, Catherine.  Pleasure to have you on my blog.  You're the best!

 



THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS "FORGOTTEN:"

It's always pure pleasure to read a book by Catherine McKenzie.  Easy and refreshing dialog, interesting plot, and over all intriguing problems to work through.  Her books are current and relevant.  I just love the way she writes.  She's witty and wise at the same time.  If you haven't read one of her books, grab this one asap.

Without reiterating the summary, I'll say that this story is brighter and more interesting than it sounds. McKenzie makes the ordinary sing.  She takes a situation that is sometimes comedic and turns it on its head to make your heart wrench.  She takes a human tragedy and turns it into an opportunity for renewal for her characters.  I love her panache!

"Forgotten" is the novel I bet many an author today wishes they'd thought of.  It's so fresh and engaging.  It reads like a charm.  I loved every minute of it.

This is one of those rare contemporary books I can recommend without reservation.  Needless to say, I'm a fan of Catherine McKenzie and will be waiting in line for her next book.  Please read this one, I know you're going to thank me if you do!

5 stars               Deborah/TheBookishDame


HAPPY TO OFFER A GIVEAWAY OF TWO BOOKS!!!!!!

To Enter:  Please follow me on Twitter and GFC on my sidebar

Leave your Twitter "handle" and your email addy


Giveaway ends on October 31st......   US and Canada Only!!!


Thanks for commenting on this one!  :]

 

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"The Third Grace" by Deb Elkink~ Interview with Author

SUMMARY: 

WINNER OF 2012 BOOK OF YEAR AWARDThe past casts a long shadow — especially when it points to a woman’s first love.

Her name was Mary Grace until she fell in love with the French exchange student visiting her family’s Nebraskafarm. François renamed her “Aglaia” — after the beautiful Third Grace of Greek mythology — and set the seventeen-year-old girl longing for something more than her parents’ simplistic life and faith.

Now, fifteen years later, Aglaia works as a costume designer in Denver. Her budding success in the city’s posh arts scene convinces her that she’s left the country bumpkin far behind.

But “Mary Grace” has deep roots, as Aglaia learns during a business trip to Paris. Her discovery of sensual notes François jotted into a Bible during that long-ago fling, a silly errand imposed by her mother, and the scheming of her sophisticated mentor conspire to create a thirst in her soul that neither evocative daydreams nor professional success can quench.

The Third Grace is a captivating debut novel that will take you on a dual journey across oceans and time — in the footsteps of a woman torn between her rural upbringing and her search for self.

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR DEB ELKINK:

Hello, Ms Elkink.  Welcome to A Bookish Libraria!

I’m so delighted you’ve agreed to allow us to get to know you and your book better.  I have several questions!

 

1) First of all, please tell us a special something about what makes you “tick.”  When you aren’t writing, what are you doing? (Aside from being a dad/mom)

 

I chill out by reading other people’s novels and watching video series with great plots: Downton Abbey is my current addiction. Did you know it’s called a “costume drama”? That suits me; I love sewing as well, more to dream up patterns and touch the fabric—natural linen, cotton, silk, and wool—than even to actually wear the garments!

 

2) You chose a specific genre, a place and time to write about, what made you choose it?

 

I discovered a marble statue grouping in the Louvre on my first trip to Paris in 1989—a sculpture by James Pradier of The Three Graces of Greek mythology. These goddesses became iconic for me and I decided to arrange my debut contemporary novel around them, as they symbolized to me the relationships among women as well as the twisted spirituality implicit in mythology—both relationship and theology of great interest to me. I was at this time still living on our isolated cattle ranch on the Canadian prairies, and the contrast between city and country, aesthetics and common sense, sophistication and practical living really hit home. I’d succumbed to the enchantment of French culture (the cuisine! the couture! the romantic language!) and wanted to explore the contrast between it and my own heritage rooted in the Mennonite faith—to say nothing of my intention to relive that teenaged feeling of falling in love.

 

3) Bronte or Austen?  Hemingway or Hawthorne?  Why?

 

Must it be an either/or choice? I can’t choose—and would instead throw in Dante and Milton, Chaucer and Cervantes, Dickens and Dostoyevsky, Thomas Hardy and Henry James. My graduate thesis subject was the fiction of G.K. Chesterton; his work—along with other metaphysically rich stories by C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the likes of Flannery O’Connor—would have to be my picks of favorite reads.

 

Who do I want to sound like when I grow up in my writing? Well, maybe a hybrid of Somerset Maugham (The Painted Veil), Joanne Harris (Chocolat), and Saint Augustine (Confessions).    

 

4) In your opinion, what makes a book a great one?

 

It must engage the reader at the experiential, visceral level. For some this means feeling the breath ’neath a lover’s whisper, or tasting the cream in a wine-laced soup, or hearing a baby’s wrenching cries. For others, it means white-knuckling a plot that grips the soul, or grappling with an underlying theme of universal magnitude that embodies and recalls the reader’s own life experiences so that she weeps as if it’s her own jilted heart breaking again, or soars with the triumph of a victorious race, or longs for eternal answers to eternal questions of destiny and destination.

 

5) Which author(s) most influenced your love of books from childhood?

 

The Bible stories from Sunday school were my earliest influence by far, and I still find in Genesis the richest archetypes, in Psalms the loftiest motifs, in Revelation the most exciting action pictures! However, I have to admit that the Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew had their say in my preteen years, before I discovered more grown-up fiction. It could be that homeschooling our three kids really taught me to appreciate literature; for fifteen years we celebrated a genre-based approach to learning and read many books together that I’d missed out on: Heidi, Robinson Crusoe, Oliver Twist, historical fiction and mysteries and romances and adventures. What a rich literary heritage I continue to discover!

 

6) Read any good books in the past 6 months?

 

I’ve been on a Jodi Picoult binge and especially love My Sister’s Keeper (for the fascinating plot) and Plain Truth (for the religious discussion). Surprised by Oxford (a memoir by Carolyn Weber) temporarily satisfied my academic urges, and I found Jeanette Walls’s autobiography The Glass Castle absolutely riveting. Too many good books, not enough time. 

 

7) Choose 4 guests from any era for dinner.  Who would they be and what would you choose for a topic of conversation?

 

·       Eve (first woman, the Garden of Eden)

·       Frank L. Baum (novelist, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)

·       The Dalai Lama (head Buddhist monk, exiled from Tibet)

·       John Calvin (16^th-century theologian, Institutes of the Christian Religion)

 

Topic: Where is “home” and how do we get there?

 

8) Which of your characters is most like you?

 

On one hand, I’d say Mary Grace/Aglaia, the main character, is most like me; she’s running away from what she’s actually looking for, as is my habit. (But I want to be like her boss, whose wisdom is rooted in a love of literature.)

 

9) If you could cast your book for a movie, who would you choose?

 

Anne Hathaway and Orlando Bloom would be a tortured leading couple, wouldn’t they?  I’d cast Bebe Neuwrith (Lilith in Cheers) as the antagonist, Reese Witherspoon as the best friend, and Alec Guinness as the sagacious boss.

 

10) Worst habit you have?

 

My all-consuming focus concerning whatever task at hand drives others and me crazy. I proposed a chant to myself back in the days I needed to ensure that my kids got proper attention—“People are more important than projects”—but I still often forget it.

 

11) How much research did you do before and during writing?

 

How does one quantify amount of research—by hours spent or blood let? I love to research and even now, long after the novel is set in stone (so to speak), I find new details I could add. However, the Greek mythological aspect of The Third Grace needed special and acute attention; much of it was added as a secondary (no, more like a tertiary) layer after my agent initially signed me.

 

12) Psychologists tell us the thing we think we’d most like to grow up to be when we’re ten years old is our avocation.  What did you want to be?

 

No surprise here: a novelist! I wrote my first imaginative piece at age nine—“published” if the school yearbook counts. I took every writing class available through high school, completed a B.A. in communications (that is, writing) and an M.A. in theology, and occupied myself with freelancing and editing (fiction, magazine articles, a national in-house legal quarterly) before I finally let myself believe I’d paid my dues and was ready for the larger canvas of a full-length novel.

 

Thanks for joining us on The Bookish Libraria!

 

 

FOLLOW "THE THIRD GRACE" VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR:

 

 

http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2012/08/07/pump-up-your-book-presents-the-third-grace-virtual-book-publicity-tour/  

 

About the Author:

 When author and city-slicker Deb Elkink fell in love and married an introverted cowboy, she moved from her bright lights to his isolated cattle ranch far off in the prairie grasslands. Still—between learning to pilot a light aircraft, sewing for a costume rental store, and cooking for branding crews of a hundred—Deb graduated with a B.A. in Communications from Bethel University in St. Paul, MN; she also holds an M.A. in Theology (both summa cum laude).

Her award-winning debut novel, THE THIRD GRACE, is set in the contrasting locales of Parisian streetand Nebraskan farmyard, and incorporates Greek mythology and aesthetics with the personal search for self. Her writing has been described as “layered and sumptuous,” “compelling,” and “satisfying.”

Visit her website at www.DebElkink.com.

Friend her at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/deb.elkink.

Pick up your paperback copy of Deb Elkink’s THE THIRD GRACE at Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Third-Grace-Deb-Elkink/dp/1937573001/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343080975&sr=8-1&keywords=third+grace+elkink

Download your ebook copy of Deb Elkink’s THE THIRD GRACE at Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Third-Grace-ebook/dp/B006ABYJNC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1343080975&sr=8-2&keywords=third+grace+elkink

Pick up your paperback copy of Deb Elkink’s THE THIRD GRACE at Barnes & Noble:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-third-grace-deb-elkink/1107067790?ean=9781937573003

Pick up your paperback copy of Deb Elkink’s THE THIRD GRACE at Chapters/Indigo:  http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/home/search/?keywords=third%20grace%20elkink&pageSize=12




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GIVEAWAY!! "Pure" by Julianna Baggott~Post-Apocalypse Drama!

SUMMARY : 
 
We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost—how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked: Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss—maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
Publisher:  Grand Central Publishing/Hachette
Pages:  431
Genre:  YA/Dystopian
Author:  Julianna Baggott
Find the author here:   Baggott Website

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT "PURE" :

Fox 2000 has acquired film rights to PURE, Baggott's post-apocalyptic novel!!!!!!
What people are saying about PURE ...
"Baggott's postapocalyptic world is realized to stunning cinematic effect..."
–– The New York Times Book Review

"... gorgeous ... You will be swept away."
-- Justin Cronin, New York Times Bestselling author of The Passage

"... extraordinary ... an important book ... by one of our finest writers."
-- Robert Olen Butler, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"... startling and addictive ... Breathtaking and frightening, I couldn't stop reading PURE."
-- Danielle Trussoni, New York Times bestselling author of Angelology

"... glorious ... full of wonderful weirdness, tenderness, and wild suspense. If Katniss could jump out of her own book and pick a great friend, I think she'd find an excellent candidate in Pressia."
-- Aimee Bender, New York Times bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake



ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Critically acclaimed, bestselling author Julianna Baggott also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher and N.E. Bode. She has published seventeen books over the last ten years. Film rights for her forthcoming novel PURE have been acquired by Fox 2000. The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, written under pen name Asher, was published in spring 2011. There are approximately 50 foreign editions of her novels to date.

Julianna began publishing when she was twenty-two and sold her first novel while still in her twenties. After receiving her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she published her first novel, Girl Talk, which was a national bestseller and was quickly followed by Boston Globe bestseller The Miss America Family, and then Boston Herald Book Club selection, The Madam, an historical novel based on the life of her grandmother. She co-wrote Which Brings Me to You with Steve Almond, A Best Book of 2006 (Kirkus Reveiws) optioned by producer Richard Brown and adapted by Keith Bunin with Matthew Warchus set to direct.

Her Bridget Asher novels include The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, The Pretend Wife, My Husband's Sweethearts. More info can be found at her Bridget Asher blog.

She also writes bestselling novels for younger readers under the pen name N.E. Bode as well as under Julianna Baggott. The Anybodies trilogy was a People Magazine pick alongside David Sedaris and Bill Clinton, a Washington Post Book of the Week, a Girl's Life Top Ten, a Booksense selection, and was in development at Nickelodeon/Paramount; The Slippery Map (fall 2007), and the prequel to Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007), a movie starring Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and Jason Bateman. For two years, Bode was a recurring personality on XM Sirius Radio.

Julianna's Boston Red Sox novel The Prince of Fenway Park (HarperCollins), was published in spring 2009. It is on the Sunshine State Young Readers Awards List for 2011-2012.
The Ever Breath (Random House) was published in December, 2009.

Baggott also has a highly acclaimed career as a poet, having published three collections of poetry and having been published in the best literary publications in the country, including Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and Best American Poetry in 2001, 2011 and 2012.

Baggott's work has appeared in over a hundred publications, including the The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Glamour, Ms., Real Simple, and read on NPR's Here and Now, All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation. Her essays, stories, and poems are highly anthologized.

She is an associate professor at Florida State University's College of Motion Picture Arts.

In 2006, Baggott and her husband co-founded the nonprofit organization Kids in Need - Books in Deed, that focuses on literacy and getting free books to underprivileged children in the state of Florida.

Video Trailer

Audio Book Summary

THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

Well certainly, this is one of the best written post-apocalypse novels to arrive on the bookshelves ever.  Julianna Baggott is a seasoned writer with a vivid imagination.  She is a genius of an author with incredible vision.  Her imagery is stark and unique.  This is a book that rushes up to grasp your attention at the most worrisome levels. What would happen if there were a "detonation" of epic proportions that left mankind changed into hybrids of the rarest sorts?  I was blown away by this book!  Consider what would happen if an elite group decided to rid the world of over-population...
This is in the headlines today, if one is interested enough to pursue the question.

Not only has Ms Baggott created a world of believable inhabitants mutated in extraordinary ways:  half mechanicals/humans blasted in the detonation and melded with animals, birds, tools and toys; but, she's created a world of ash and destruction inhabited by survivors barely holding on to their humanity.  Memories are fragile and fragmented, relationships are shallow, and elders are few and far between.  This is so well-conceived.  Horrifyingly realistic.

Baggott's characters; Pressia, Bradwell and Partridge are symbolic of the survivors we might hope to find in such a post-apocayptic world.  Brave and strong of heart and mind...fighting against the status quo, wise beyond their years.  Even the anti-hero, El Capitan is a victim of his times and somewhat sympathetic.  Her rendering of such well-wrought peoples (others not mentioned here) adds depth in a way that made me devour this book like few others. 

This novel would be perfect for college studies.  Rich in detail, beautifully written, strong in characterization and symbolism for today's world.  It's a warning of a world gone haywire.  It's a hope for survival.  A unique and worthy read.

5 stars     Deborah/TheBookishDame



Happily there is a sequel coming soon!  It's called "Fuse" and will be debuting on February 19th, 2013!

Here's a quick synopsis:  An epic quest that sweeps readers into a world of beautiful brutality, "Fuse" continues the story of two people fighting to save their futures--and change the fate of the world.



                                                              GIVEAWAY!!!!!

             COPY OF  "PURE"  TO BE GIVEN AWAY

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                     ***DRAWING  WILL BE HELD  OCT. 31ST


US  and Canada only, please!  Sorry....


Find your copy of "Pure" here :  http://amazon.com  or http://barnesandnoble.com

 

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