Walter’s Muse

• Publisher: Endicott & Hugh Books
• Publication date: 2/1/2012
• Pages: 285

It’s the first summer of her retirement and librarian Maggie Lewis is relishing the unfolding of sweet summer days on Vashon Island: walking on the beach, reading the classics, and kayaking. But in June when a sudden storm hits the island, Maggie’s summer becomes about as peaceful as navigating whitewater. Not only does her wealthy sister arrive uninvited with a startling announcement; but Maggie finds herself entangled with her new Baker’s Beach neighbor, Walter Hathaway. A famous children’s author and recovering alcoholic, Walter has a history with Maggie they would each like to forget. Delightfully told with humor and insight, Walter’s Muse is a page turner for romantics, writers, and the young at heart at any age.

“An exhilarating portrait of a woman in her prime…revives in all of us a lust for life, with its splendid twists and turns, gifts of love and friendship, and promises of more surprises to come.” –Nina Sankovitch, Huffington Post, author of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

“For those who believe in second chances in love and life, Walter’s Muse provides a warm and engaging blueprint.  Okimoto’s loveably quirky characters become a reader’s friends and family.  I hated to finish the last page.”–Connie Burns, School LIbrary Journal, reviewer

“Brimming with wit and wisdom…a delightful celebration of mature love, sure to enchant fans of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand!”–Juli Morser, Books by the Way

About Jeanie Okimoto

Jean Davies Okimoto is an author and playwright whose books and short stories have been translated into Japanese, Italian, Chinese, German and Hebrew. She is the recipient  of numerous awards including Smithsonian Notable Book, the American LibraryAssociation Best Book for Young Adults, the Washington Governor’s Award and the International Reading Association Readers Choice Award. Her picture book, Blumpoe the Grumpoe Meets Arnold the Cat was adapted by Shelly Duvall for the HBO and Showtime television series “Bedtime Stories.” Her debut novel for adults The Love Ceiling was a season’s pick by the King County Library System, named to the ABA Indie Next Reading Group List and ebook Fiction Winner in the 2009 Indie Next Generation Awards. She has appeared on CNN, Oprah, and The Today Show. Jeanie began writing for adults when she and her husband Joe retired to Vashon Island in 2004 where they are visited by deer, a raccoon named George who is missing a tail and their six grandchildren.

For more information on Ms. Okimoto, please visit her website at www.jeandaviesokimoto.com.

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (February 21, 2012)

From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini, a powerful and dramatic Prohibition-era story that follows the fortunes of Rosa Diaz Barclay, a woman who plunges into the unknown for the safety of her children and the love of a good but flawed man.

As the nation grapples with the strictures of Prohibition, Rosa Barclay lives on a Southern California rye farm with her volatile husband, John, who has lately found another source of income far outside the federal purview.

Mother to eight children, Rosa mourns the loss of four who succumbed to the mysterious wasting disease that is now afflicting young Ana and Miguel. Two daughters born of another father are in perfect health. When an act of violence shatters Rosa’s resolve to maintain her increasingly dangerous existence, she flees with the children and her precious heirloom quilts to the mesa where she last saw her beloved mother alive.

As a flash flood traps them in a treacherous canyon, only one man is brave—or foolhardy—enough to come to their rescue: Lars Jorgenson, Rosa’s first love and the father of her healthy daughters. Together they escape to Berkeley, where a leading specialist offers their only hope of saving Ana and Miguel. Here in northern California, they create new identities to protect themselves from Rosa’s vengeful husband, the police who seek her for questioning, and the gangsters Lars reported to Prohibition agents—officers representing a department often as corrupt as the Mob itself. Ever mindful that his youthful alcoholism provoked Rosa to spurn him, Lars nevertheless supports Rosa’s daring plan to stake their futures on a struggling Sonoma Valley vineyard—despite the recent hardships of local winemakers whose honest labors at viticulture have, through no fault of their own, become illegal.

About Jennifer Chiaverini

JENNIFER CHIAVERINI is the author of the New York Times bestselling Elm Creek Quilt series, as well as five collections of quilt projects inspired by the novels.  A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, she lives with her husband and sons in Madison, Wisconsin.

Connect with Jennifer at her website, Elm Creek Quilts Online.

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Jennifer Chiaverini’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, February 13th:  Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesday, February 14th:  2 Kids and Tired Book Reviews

Wednesday, February 15th:  Unabridged Chick

Thursday, February 16th:  Christian Historical Fiction

Monday, February 20th:  Angler’s Rest

Wednesday, February 22nd:  All Grown Up?

Thursday, February 23rd:  Brimful Curiosities

Friday, February 24th:  Amused by Books

Monday, February 27th:  Col Reads

Tuesday, February 28th:  Life in Review

Wednesday, February 29th:  Reflections of a Bookaholic

Thursday, March 1st:  Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books

Monday, March 5th:  A Chick Who Reads

Tuesday, March 6th:  Joyfully Retired

Wednesday, March 7th:  Colloquium 

Monday, March 12th:  Book Dilettante

Wednesday, March 14th:  A Cozy Reader’s Corner

Hardcover: 320 pages

Publisher: Putnam Adult (April 12, 2012)

One of only two survivors of a plane crash, Nell Slattery wakes in the hospital with no memory of the horrific experience-or who she is, or was. Now she must piece together both body and mind, with the help of family and friends, who have their own agendas. She filters through photos, art, music, and stories, hoping something will jog her memory, and soon, in tiny bits and pieces, Nell starts remembering. . . .

It isn’t long before she learns to question the stories presented by her mother, her sister and business partner, and her husband. In the end, she will discover that forgiving betrayals small and large will be the only true path to healing herself-and to finding happiness.

“Funny, poignant, and absorbing.” -J. Courtney Sullivan, author of  Maine  and  Commencement 

About Allison Winn Scotch

Allison Winn Scotch is the bestselling author of Time of My Life. A former freelance magazine writer, she has written for Glamour, Parents, and Men’s Health. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two children.  To learn more about Allison Winn Scotch, please visit www.allisonwinn.com.

Allison Winn Scotch’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Tuesday, March 27th:  Well Read Wife

Wednesday, March 28th:  DBC Reads

Thursday, March 29th:  Colloquium

Friday, March 30th:  Chick Lit Reviews and News

Monday, April 2nd:  Raging Bibliomania

Tuesday, April 3rd:  Amused by Books

Wednesday, April 4th:  Chick Lit is Not Dead – Guest Post “5 Things I’d Tell the Teen Me”

Thursday, April 5th:  Peeking Between the Pages

Monday, April 9th:  Library of Clean Reads

Tuesday, April 10th:  Reading with Martinis

Wednesday, April 11th:  A Musing Reviews

Thursday, April 12th:  Reviews from the Heart

Monday, April 16th:  Books Distilled

Tuesday, April 17th:  She Treads Softly

Wednesday, April 18th:  Suko’s Notebook

Monday, April 23rd:  I Am A Reader, Not A Writer – Author Q&A

Tuesday, April 24th:  Books Distilled

Wednesday, April 25th:  All Grown Up?

Hardcover: 384 pages

Publisher: The Dial Press (March 20, 2012)

In Jennifer duBois’s mesmerizing and exquisitely rendered debut novel, a long-lost letter links two disparate characters, each searching for meaning against seemingly insurmountable odds.

In St. Petersburg, Russia, world chess champion Aleksandr Bezetov begins a quixotic quest. With his renowned Cold War–era tournaments behind him, Aleksandr has turned to politics, launching a dissident presidential campaign against Vladimir Putin. He knows he will not win—and that he is risking his life in the process—but a deeper conviction propels him forward. And in the same way that he cannot abandon his aims, he cannot erase the memory of a mysterious woman he loved in his youth.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, thirty-year-old English lecturer Irina Ellison is on an improbable quest of her own. Certain she has inherited Huntington’s disease—the same cruel illness that ended her father’s life—she struggles with a sense of purpose. When Irina finds an old, photocopied letter her father had written to the young Aleksandr Bezetov, she makes a fateful decision. Her father had asked the Soviet chess prodigy a profound question—How does one proceed against a lost cause?—but never received an adequate reply. Leaving everything behind, Irina travels to Russia to find Bezetov and get an answer for her father, and for herself.

Spanning two continents and the dramatic sweep of history, A Partial History of Lost Causes reveals the stubbornness and splendor of the human will even in the most trying times. With uncommon perception and wit, Jennifer duBois explores the power of memory, the depths of human courage, and the endurance of love.

“Thrilling, thoughtful, strange, gorgeous, political, and deeply personal, Jennifer duBois’s A Partial History of Lost Causes is a terrific debut novel. In prose both brainy and beautiful, she follows her characters as they struggle to save each other. This is a book to get lost in.”—Elizabeth McCracken

“An amazing achievement—a braiding of historical, political, and personal, each strand illuminating the other. Wonderful characters, elusive glimpses of wisdom, and a gripping story that accelerates to just the right ending.”—Arthur Phillips

“Hilarious and heartbreaking and a triumph of the imagination. Jennifer duBois is too young to be this talented.  I wish I were her.”—Gary Shteyngart

About Jennifer duBois

Jennifer duBois is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently completing a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. Originally from western Massachusetts, she lives in Northern California.

For more information on Jennifer and her work, please visit her website:  jennifer-dubois.com.

Jennifer duBois’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, March 12th:  Book Snob

Wednesday, March 14th:  Bibliosue

Monday, March 19th:  Unabridged Chick

Tuesday, March 20th:  Broken Teepee

Wednesday, March 21st:  The Literate Housewife Review

Monday, March 26th:  Luxury Reading

Wednesday, March 28th:  Book Club Classics

Monday, April 2nd:  Wandering Thoughts of a Scientific Housewife

Wednesday, April 4th:  Wordsmithonia

Thursday, April 5th:  She Treads Softly

Monday, April 9th: Coffee and a Book Chick

Wednesday, April 11th:  Jenny Loves to Read

Paperback: 214 pages

Publisher: Black Rose Writing (September 23, 2010)

Merry Christmas Stories is a collection of 25 Christmas tales that emphasize the value of Christmas love and laughter. These short stories will make you laugh, smile and just feel good about this magical time of year. These delightful stories, written in a variety of genres, all reflect Christmas love, hope and charity.

A firm believer in the power and importance of laughter, Spalsbury employs humor in his books and hopes the stories will provide some Christmas cheer for all who read them. The stories represent a variety of genres ranging from the traditional to romance to science fiction.

There are stories of adventure along with humor, unexpected surprises, romance and poignant moments. These are feel-good stories, to uplift your spirit and to leave you with a smile or a warm feeling.  Just the way Christmas should feel.

About Jeff R. Spalsbury

Jeff R. Spalsbury also writes science fiction and western novels. Avalon Press published his western novel, Hunt the Hunter, in December 2010 and the second novel in his Hunt series, The Hunted Return is scheduled to be published in July 2012, also by Avalon.  His science fiction novel, SPACE DREAM ONE: That Other’s May Live will be published as an eBook in October 2011.

Spalsbury taught a class on the importance of using humor in the classroom at California State University in Fresno. He is also a former library director and professor at Porterville College, Porterville, CA.

To learn more about Spalsbury’s books, visit his website at www.JeffRSpalsbury.com. His books can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Black Rose Writing or various online  eBook sellers, including the Apple iPad, Sony Nook, etc.

Jeff Spalsbury’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, November 21st:  The Road to Here

Tuesday, November 22nd:  Reviews from the Heart

Wednesday, November 23rd:  Peeking Between the Pages

Friday, November 25th:  A Chick Who Reads

Monday, November 28th:  I Am A Reader, Not A Writer - Q&A/giveaway

Wednesday, November 30th:  Cheryl’s Book Nook

Thursday, December 1st:  Life in Review

Friday, December 2nd:  2 Kids and Tired

Monday, December 5th:  Laura’s Reviews

Wednesday, December 7th:  My Bookshelf

Thursday, December 8th:  Deb’s Book Bag

Friday, December 9th:  Living Outside the Stacks

Monday, December 12th:  Along the Way

Tuesday, December 13th:  By the Book

Wednesday, December 14th:  Nailing Jello to a Tree

Thursday, December 15th:  Book Reviews by Molly

Book Club of the Month Contest for September!

A love story that defies the bounds of time and space..

Book clubs will love

BEFORE EVER AFTER

Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto

What if ‘til death do us part meant more than you could ever know? In Samantha Sotto’s debut novel BEFORE EVER AFTER (Crown Trade: Aug. 2, 2011), you’ll find a love story that defies the bounds of time and space to redefine our notion of forever.

Shelley Gallus’ happy ending abruptly ended three years ago when her husband Max died. She has settled into life as a widow, braving Sunday mornings alone with a cup of Jasmine tea and a poor imitation of Max’s famous baked eggs and cheese, until her fragile recovery is shattered one morning when the doorbell rings. On her doorstep she finds handsome young Paolo, who bears not only an uncanny resemblance to her late husband but some unbelievable news: Max is alive!

Shelley would be overjoyed by the words she has been longing for if not for two small details. First, Max was blown to bits by a Madrid subway bomb. And second, Paolo claims to be her 32-year-old husband’s 32-year-old grandson. Still, the single spark of hope that she could be reunited with the love of her life is all Shelley needs to launch her across the globe with Paolo in search of Max.

During their journey, Shelley is preoccupied with memories of “The Slight Detour,” the budget European tour package where she met and fell in love with her tour guide husband. Reality descends as Shelley begins to realize that Max’s vivid stories of bloody Parisian rebellions, medieval Austrian monasteries, and doomed Venetian cities may not have been stories at all.

Shelley had always believed her marriage was the stuff of fairy tales. But when fantasy collides hard with reality, and she and Paolo come closer to discovering the truth about Max, Shelley faces an agonizing leap of faith before she can have her happily ever after.

“A smartly written romance, mystery and historical adventure all wrapped up in a page-turner that will have you guessing until the very end. I could not stop thinking about it.”  —Adena Halpern, author of The Ten Best Days of My Life

“First-time author Sotto’s lush literary gifts draw one in to the terrible beauty of her tale of immortality.” —Library Journal

The winning book club will also win a phone or Skype call from the author!

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Is keeping a secret from a spouse always an act of infidelity? And what cost does such a secret exact on a family?

The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen

“How does a family transcend its own pain? How do the secrets we keep shape our lives and the lives of those we love? In this gracefully written, elegantly structured novel, Leah Hager Cohen has created an indelible cast of characters whose story is at once wrenching and redemptive. This is a beautiful book.”—Dani Shapiro, author of Family History

The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return to their previous lives. Struggling to regain a semblance of normalcy for themselves and for their two older children, they find themselves pretending not only that little has changed, but that their marriage, their family, have always been intact. Yet in the aftermath of the baby’s death, long-suppressed uncertainties about their relationship come roiling to the surface. A dreadful secret emerges with reverberations that reach far into their past and threaten their future.

The couple’s children, ten-year-old Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in exquisitely- perhaps courageously-idiosyncratic ways. But as the four family members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives, and they all find themselves growing more alert to the sadness and burdens of others-to the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together.

Moving, psychologically acute, and gorgeously written, The Grief of Others asks how we balance personal autonomy with the intimacy of relationships, how we balance private decisions with the obligations of belonging to a family, and how we take measure of our own sorrows in a world rife with suffering. This novel shows how one family, by finally allowing itself to experience the shared quality of grief, is able to rekindle tenderness and hope.

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Friendship, betrayal, forgiveness

Book clubs will find much to discuss in

Remember Me

Remember Me by Cheryl Robinson

What happens when the loyalty that defines the friendship of two women is tested? For Mia and Danielle, finding the answer takes a lifetime…

Mia Marks is a black girl from inner-city Detroit with an eye for the hottest fashions and a penchant for the good life. Danielle King is a suburban white girl with artistic ambitions. When a series of circumstances thrust Danielle and Mia together their freshman year at an all-girls Catholic high school, neither expects to form a deep bond that transcends race and background, and lasts for years. And neither could have anticipated the one indiscretion that destroyed it forever.

Twenty years later, Danielle is a successful novelist living in Miami. Mia is a school teacher in Detroit. But they’re still on common ground–both unhappily married and raising teenage daughters, and both far too proud to make the first move and reconnect. Until tragedy brings them back together in the most unexpected way. Now they must confront the past, discover its untold truths, and learn to survive the increasing complexities of their lives, and a friendship destined to endure.

Learn more about Remember Me on Cheryl’s website, cherylrobinson.com, and on her Facebook page.

The winning book club will win a beautiful four layer Red Velvet Cake from Caroline’s Cake, www.carolinescakes.com , as seen on The Today Show!

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Please fill out our super-short registration form (<—–click here!) by September 30th and register to win a set of up to ten copies of  Before Ever After, Remember Me or The Grief of Others for your book club!  We will randomly choose winners at the end of the month.  This contest is open to clubs in the US and Canada only (our apologies to friends in other countries).

Best of luck!

We LOVE Book Clubs!

 

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (September 27, 2011)

Life was always just about perfect for Brooke Madison Bowers. She was the prettiest, most popular girl in small-town St. Dennis, Maryland, a prom queen, local pageant star, and the pride and joy of her loving parents. She even married the man of her dreams. But the promise of happily ever after fell to pieces when her husband was killed while serving in Iraq. Brokenhearted and longing for the solace of better days, she returns to the idyllic world of St. Dennis, and the familiar comfort of the family farm. Surrounded by her loving family and friends, she’s determined to build a new life, complete with her own cupcake bakery. She’s equally determined never to fall in love again.

For Jesse Enright, life has been a challenge. A fourth-generation attorney, he’s spent his life fighting to escape the shadow of his irresponsible father. Now he’s moved to St. Dennis to run the family law practice, and he’s ready to find the right girl, get married, and settle down. But his carefully laid plans go out the window when he meets Brooke and finds himself caught between the unbreakable law of attraction and Brooke’s resolve to go her way alone—despite the undeniable feelings Jesse stirs in her. But just like catching lightning in a bottle, is it possible to fall head-over-heels, heart-and-soul in love all over again?

Hometown Girl is book four in The Chesapeake Diaries series.

About Mariah Stewart

Mariah Stewart is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of twenty-nine novels of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. A native of Hightstown, New Jersey, she lives with her husband and their dogs amid the rolling hills and Amish farms of southern Chester County, Pennsylvania, where she gardens, reads, and enjoys country life. She is currently working on the next book in her bestselling Chesapeake Diaries series.

Connect with Mariah on her website, www.mariahstewart.com, and on Facebook.

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Mariah Stewart’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, October 3rd:  Book Reviews by Molly

Wednesday, October 5th:  Reviews from the Heart

Friday, October 7th:  Book Reviews by Molly – guest post

Monday, October 10th:  Kelly’s Lucky You

Wednesday, October 12th:  Novel Reaction

Thursday, October 13th:  I Am a Reader, Not a Writer - interview/giveaway

Monday, October 17th:  Along the Way

Tuesday, October 18th:  Deb’s Book Bag

Wednesday, October 19th: Lesa’s Book Critiques – review

Thursday, October 20th:  Lesa’s Book Critiques - guest post

Wednesday, October 24th:  Colloquium – guest post/giveaway

Wednesday, October 26th:  Joyfully Retired – guest post/giveaway

Tuesday, November 1st:  All Grown Up?

Monday, November 7th:  A Cozy Reader’s Corner

Wednesday, November 9th:  My Two Blessings

Monday, November 14th:  Pudgy Penguin Perusals

Friday, November 18th:  Sara’s Organized Chaos

Tuesday, December 13th :  Book Journey

Paperback: 352 pagePublisher: Berkley Trade; 1st edition (June 7, 2011)

Lilli Niles is at home in her North London flat when she receives an unexpected call.  Her elder sister Bea — at the family homestead in White Head, Massachusetts — has just lost her husband, and she’d like Lilli to fly home for the funeral.

Lilli, a painter, is preparing for her latest gallery opening.  And more to the point, there are reasons she moved all the way to England to escape her older sister, reasons that have kept them estranged for decades.

But something in Bea’s voice makes Lilli think it’s time to return to the stately house in New England she loved as a child, to the memory of a shared loss — and to a time when simple sisterhood was enough to overcome betrayal and resentment.

In this emotional debut, Katharine Britton explores the divergent paths we take in life — and the turns in the road that bring us back, ultimately, to each other.

“Shifting between present day and the late 1960s, two sisters confront their tragic past in Britton’s touching debut. Britton seamlessly alternates between the two eras to unravel a tale of rivalry, tragedy, love, and the corruptibility of truth.” –Publishers Weekly

“Anyone with sisters, secrets, or a family house where memories are stored, will be held captive by this haunting story of love, loss, loneliness and the healing light of truth.” –Sally Ryder Brady, author of A BOX OF DARKNESS

About Katharine Britton

Katharine Britton has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Dartmouth College.  She teaches at Colby-Sawyer College, and at The Writer’s Center.  Her screenplay, Goodbye Don’t Mean Gone, was a Moondance Film Festival winner and a finalist in the New England Women in Film and Television contest. Katharine is a member of the League of Vermont Writers.

When not at her desk, Katharine can be found at her Norwich garden, waging a non-toxic war against the slugs, snails, deer, woodchucks, chipmunks, moles, voles and beetles with whom she shares her yard. Katharine’s defense consists mainly of hand-wringing, after the fact.

Connect with Katharine online at her website, www.HerSistersShadow.com, her blog, and on Facebook.

Katharine Britton’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Tuesday, October 18th:  Life in Review

Thursday, October 20th:  Savvy Verse and Wit

Thursday, October 27th:  Oodles of Books

Friday, October 28th:  Amused by Books

Tuesday, November 1st:  Seaside Book Nook

Wednesday, November 2nd:  Chocolate and Croissants

Thursday, November 3rd:  “That’s Swell!”

Monday, November 7th:  Luxury Reading

Wednesday, November 9th:  girlichef

Saturday, November 12th:  Colloquium

Monday, November 14th:  Peeking Between the Pages

Wednesday, November 16th:  A Bookish Affair

Saturday, December 3rd:  A Cozy Reader’s Corner

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: McBooks Press (April 1, 2011)

Sally Ketchum comes from dirt-poor farm folk. She has little chance of bettering her life until a mysterious barnstormer named Tex teaches her to fly—and becomes the first person worthy of her love. But Tex dies in a freak accident, leaving Sally to make her own way in the world. She enrolls in the U.S. military’s Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program, and in a special school located in West Texas begins learning to fly the biggest, fastest, meanest airplanes the military has to offer. She also reluctantly becomes involved with Beau Bayard, a flight instructor and aspiring writer, who seems to offer her everything she could want. But many people see no place for a “skirt” in the cockpit, and Sally soon finds herself pitted against a high-powered Washington lawyer who wants to disband the WASP once and for all.  Their battle is a story of extraordinary women who broke society’s rules and became heroes, and of men who stood in their way.

About Karl Friedrich

Karl Friedrich was born and grew up in Tyler, Texas. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine and public relations writer, advertising copywriter, and photographer. A lifelong aviation fan, he got his first ride in an airplane at the age of five (“If I’d been six, I’d have had the sense to stay on the ground, as the thing was held together with rust and bailing wire,” he recalls.)

Karl’s friends who fly commercial, military or private aircraft, and his lifelong fascination with women who achieve great accomplishment despite the displeasure of men, provided the inspiration and impetus for Wings.

Karl and his wife live in Washington State.

Karl Friedrich’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, October 3rd:  A Bookish Libraria

Tuesday, October 4th:  Life in Review

Wednesday, October 5th:  Acting Balanced

Monday, October 10th:  The Life (and lies) of an inanimate flying object - guest post

Tuesday, October 11th:  Diary of an Eccentric

Wednesday, October 12th:  “That’s Swell!”

Thursday, October 13th:  Man of La Book

Saturday, October 15th:  Man of La Book - author Q&A

Tuesday, October 18th:  Reviews from the Heart

Wednesday, October 19th:  A Bookish Affair

Thursday, October 20th:  Bags, Books & Bon Jovi

Friday, October 21st:  Flight to Success

Sunday, October 23rd:  Staircase Wit

Tuesday, October 25th:  Unabridged Chick

Wednesday, October 26th:  Melody & Words

Thursday, October 27th:  2 Kids and Tired

Thursday, October 27th:  A Cozy Reader’s Corner

Tuesday, November 1st:  Joyfully Retired

Wednesday, November 2nd:  The House of the Seven Tails

Thursday, November 3rd: Life on the Road as a Pilot

July Book Club of the Month Contest!

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Immigrant life, father/son relationships, and the evolution of an unlikely writer

Book Clubs will find all that and so much more to discuss in Thoughts Without Cigarettes by Oscar Hijuelos!

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos has won multiple awards for his novels that feature locales as exotic as beautiful Havana and subjects as universal as family, dreams, love, and music.  For his latest project, he writes from the heart about the people and places that have inspired his internationally bestselling novels.  Thoughts Without Cigarettes will detail those developmental years of his life, immigrant life in New York in the 50s and 60s, his relationship with his father, an eye-opening return visit to Cuba later in life, influential time spent in Europe, and much more.  A comprehensive look at the development of an unlikely writer, Thoughts Without Cigarettes will offer a guide through Hijuelos’s innermost thoughts and experiences.

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Mother/Daughter relationships, growing up, letting go

Book Clubs will find much to laugh about and talk over in The Gap Year by Sarah Bird!

From the widely praised author of The Yokota Officers Club and The Flamenco Academy, a novel as hilarious as it is heartbreaking about a single mom and her seventeen-year-old daughter learning how to let go in that precarious moment before college empties the nest. 

In The Gap Year, told with perfect pitch from both points of view, we meet Cam Lightsey, lactation consultant extraordinaire, a divorcée still secretly carrying a torch for the ex who dumped her, a suburban misfit who’s given up her rebel dreams so her only child can get a good education.

We also learn the secrets of Aubrey Lightsey, tired of being the dutiful, grade-grubbing band geek, ready to explode from wanting her “real” life to begin, trying to figure out love with boys weaned on Internet porn.

When Aubrey meets Tyler Moldenhauer, football idol–sex god with a dangerous past, the fuse is lit. Late-bloomer Aubrey metastasizes into Cam’s worst silent, sullen teen nightmare, a girl with zero interest in college. Worse, on the sly Aubrey’s in touch with her father, who left when she was two to join a celebrity-ridden nutball cult.

As the novel unfolds—with humor, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and penetrating insights about love in the twenty-first century—the dreams of daughter, mother, and father chart an inevitable, but perhaps not fatal, collision . . .

Discussion questions for The Gap Year can be found HERE.

The Gap Year is featured in Good Housekeeping’s Summer Beach Reads 2011 and  Yahoo’s 10 Best Books for Summer!

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Finding adventure and love, independence and stability, having it all in midlife

Book Clubs will enjoy discussing the many universal issues in All Over the Map by Laura Fraser!

In All Over the Map, the bestselling author of An Italian Affair buys us the plane tickets and takes us in search of adventure and romance as she wonders whether it’s possible, in midlife, to have it all.

Laura loves being a writer who travels all over the map. She can pick up and go whenever she wants, jumping on a plane to escape a romance gone bad or to taste the world’s best ceviche.

When the sexy Parisian professor who helped Laura get over her divorce tells her that he has a new girlfriend, Laura wonders whether her passion for travel is interfering with what most women seem to want at her age: a husband, a family, and a safe, settled life. She’s further shaken by a trip to the South Pacific that goes very wrong, and for a while she becomes a travel writer afraid to travel.

Searching for love and coping with her ordeal, Laura tangos in Buenos Aires, seeks wisdom from an Amazonian shaman, heads off into the wilderness on Outward Bound, goes on a ten-day meditation retreat, interviews sex-trafficked women in Italy, and reports on the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda. When she’s dumped on her forty-fifth birthday, she’s oddly relieved, and realizes she isn’t going to wait for a man anymore. She decides that although she doesn’t have the life she anticipated, she’ll create the life she wants–at home in San Francisco, and in a small arts town in Mexico. Laura experiences the extremes of adventure and emotion that women of all ages will relate to — and she comes out satisfied and happy on the other side.

Discussion questions for All Over the Map from O, the Oprah Magazine can be found HERE.

Laura is happy to talk with book clubs via Skype or phone; email info@laurafraser.com.

All Over the Map was named National Geographic Traveler’s Book of the Month, and one of O, the Oprah Magazine’s Ten Books to Read Now.

““All Over The Map makes you want to pack your bags, explore the world, mend your broken heart, and totally reclaim your life.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed

“Brave, honest, and compulsively readable. I truly laughed and cried.”
— Mary Roach, author of Stiff, Spook, and Bonk

Join Laura for her Mexican Writing Fiesta in San Miguel de Allende, Oct 23-29: http://www.laurafraser.com/writing-from-experience-in-san-miguel-de-allende/.

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Forgiveness, redemption, freedom, and the price we pay to get there

Book Clubs won’t be able to stop talking about A Good Hard Look by Ann Napolitano!

Crippled by lupus at twenty-five, celebrated author Flannery O’Connor was forced to leave New York City and return home to Andalusia, her family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. Years later, as Flannery is finishing a novel and tending to her menagerie of peacocks, her mother drags her to the wedding of a family friend.

Cookie Himmel embodies every facet of Southern womanhood that Flannery lacks: she is revered for her beauty and grace; she is at the helm of every ladies’ organization in town; and she has returned from her time in Manhattan with a rich fiancé, Melvin Whiteson. Melvin has come to Milledgeville to begin a new chapter in his life, but it is not until he meets Flannery that he starts to take a good hard look at the choices he has made. Despite the limitations of her disease, Flannery seems to be more alive than other people, and Melvin is drawn to her like a moth to a candle flame.

Melvin is not the only person in Milledgeville who starts to feel that life is passing him by. Lona Waters, the dutiful wife of a local policeman, is hired by Cookie to help create a perfect home. As Lona spends her days sewing curtains, she is given an opportunity to remember what it feels like to be truly alive, and she seizes it with both hands.

Heartbreakingly beautiful and inescapably human, these ordinary and extraordinary people chart their own courses through life. In the aftermath of one tragic afternoon, they are all forced to look at themselves and face up to Flannery’s observation that “the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”

Please fill out our super-short registration form and register to win a set of up to ten copies of Thoughts Without Cigarettes by Oscar Hijuelos, The Gap Year by Sarah Bird, All Over the Map by Laura Fraser, or A Good Hard Look by Ann Napolitano by July 31st!  We will randomly choose winners at the end of the month.  This contest is open to clubs in the US and Canada only (our apologies to friends in other countries).

Best of luck!

We LOVE Book Clubs!