Hey, Who Won the Man Booker Prize this year?!

He should have seen it coming.

His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one...

That's not a quote about Howard Jacobson winning the Man Booker Prize this year, it's the beginning of his book, The Finkler Question "a scorching story of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and of the wisdom and humanity of maturity." The Finkler Question is Howard Jacobson's 11th novel. Two previous novels longlisted for the Man Booker Prize were Kalooki Nights in 2006 and Who's Sorry Now in 2002. Much talk has circulated about Howard Jacobson being an underrated, but highly regarded writer. Winning the Man Booker Prize finally brings Jacobson into the limelight some say he should have gotten long ago. Part of the problem may be that Howard Jacobson writes comic novels (with a bit of tragedy thrown in for good measure). Aren't literary awards for the light of heart too?! Some also say that this is the first time in the 42 year history of the Man Booker Prize that a comic novel has won. Here's what The Finkler Question is all about...

Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they’ve never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevcik, a Czech always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results.

Now, both Libor and Sam are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor’s grand, central London apartment.

It’s a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. Better, perhaps, to go through life without knowing happiness at all because that way you have less to mourn? Treslove finds he has tears enough for the unbearable sadness of both his friends’ losses.

And it’s that very evening, at exactly 11:30, as Treslove, walking home, hesitates a moment outside the window of the oldest violin dealer in the country, that he is attacked. And after this, his whole sense of who and what he is will slowly and ineluctably change.

I picked up a copy of Howard Jacobson's book because I do like to read the Man Booker Prize winners. I wait every year to see what books made the longlist to see if I've read any of them yet, and I love to guess what novels will make the shortlist.

Do you intend to read The Finkler Question because it won the Man Booker Prize? Do you tend to shy away from "comic" writing? The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson is available in paperback now! And Kindle readers can buy The Finkler Question for the Kindle for $7.84 right now! If you'd like to read a sample, you can read the First Two Chapters courtesy of Amazon.

Number The Stars by Lois Lowry... a Review on a Book Stirring Controversy

Number The Stars by Lois Lowry

*************

Ten-year-old Annemarie must find the courage to go on a mission to save her best friends life... While the Nazi soldiers are "relocating" the Jews of Denmark.

Lois Lowry, the author of numerous children’s books, recently received a letter from a teacher at the Taurus American College in Taurus Turkey informing her that her book Number the Stars was banned by the government.

“Last week the inspectors from the Turkish Department of Education came to our school and after reading one paragraph of your book, Number the Stars, banned the book at our school.”

Lois Lowry fans were outraged, along with a slew of librarians and teachers. There were calls to contact the National Coalition Against Censorship and the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. Officials at the at the US Consulate in Adana found that the book is still at the library and available on the shelves. After all this came out, the inspectors stated that they questioned whether young children in primary schools should be involved in subjects with strong religious or political connotations.

After reading about this controversy, first in School Library Journal, and then on Lois Lowry's website, my curiosity got the best of me and I bought a copy of Number the Stars to read since I never read it before.

Number the Stars is rooted in the Holocaust and tells the little known true story of the evacuation of Jews from Nazi-held Denmark. Lois Lowry is able to instill the fear of the Nazi occupation, the struggles of not only the Jews in Denmark, but of all the Danish people, and the courage of the Danish resistance in a mere 132 pages. It's a story of courage and of friendship as two little girls, one Jewish and one non-Jewish, who don't understand all the hatred are thrown into a war that makes no sense to anyone around them. One of the friends, Annemarie, is determined to save her Jewish friend, Ellen, from the Nazi's. Lois Lowry is a wonderful writer and even though this is written for ages 9 - 12, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The story was actually gripping at times, and a good introduction to the tragedy of the Holocaust. Though the reader isn't bombarded with images of Nazi concentration camps and there are only subtle subtle references to the goings on in other countries, the wrongness of the occupation and the unjust persecution of the Jewish people is plainly evident as the story unfolds. Even a simple question subtly drives home a point,

"What harm is a button shop? Mrs. Hirsch is such a nice lady."

The afterward in the book describes the history Number The Stars is actually based on, and the story is fascinating. Nearly 7000 people, almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark, were smuggled across the sea to Sweden. Swedish scientists worked on a special powder made up of dried rabbits blood and cocaine which if sniffed by the search dogs would numb the sense of smell and thus prevent detection of people hidden away in the boats.

If you haven't read Number The Stars by Lois Lowry, I would encourage you to read it. It's a wonderfully written story about a sensitive subject, but written from the perspective of a little girl. Sometimes the innocence of a child can teach us amazing lessons...

*P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready! And it's a bargain at $4.40!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett... January Book Club Selection

Three Ordinary Women are About to Take One Extraordinary Step...

January Book Club Selection

About the Book...

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.

What makes a great book club selection? Great writing, compelling characters, conflict & heartbreak, redemption... The Help by Kathryn Stockett has all these elements! Just glancing through the book on the shelf, Kathryn's writing grabs you and holds you there to read just a little more. The 60's was a turbulent time in the south, with racial tensions & segregation, and the author takes pains to be authentic in writing about the times the three women of the story lived in, one in which the black maids took care of and virtually raised the children of their white employers, but could still be harassed when walking down those same streets. The author herself was raised in such a household in Jackson, Mississippi... Here's an excerpt from a conversation with Kathryn Stockett about growing up and about writing her book...

"Growing up in Mississippi, almost every family I knew had a black woman working in their house—cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the white children. That was life in Mississippi. I was young and assumed that’s how most of America lived. When I moved to New York, though, I realized my “normal” wasn’t quite the same as the rest of America’s. I knew a lot of Southerners in the city, and every now and then we’d talk about what we missed from the South. Inevitably, somebody would start talking about the maid they grew up with, some little thing that made us all remember—Alice’s good hamburgers or riding in the back seat to take Willy May home. Everybody had a story to tell. Twenty years later, with a million things to do in New York City, there we were still talking about the women who’d raised us in our mama’s kitchens. It was probably on one of those late nights, homesick, when I realized I wanted to write about those relationships from my childhood."

'The Help is fiction, by far and wide...I was scared, a lot of the time, that I was crossing a terrible line, writing in the voice of a black person. I was afraid I would fail to describe a relationship that was so intensely influential in my life, so loving, so grossly stereotyped in American history. I am afraid I have told too little. Not just that life was so much worse, for many black women working in the homes in Mississippi. But also, that there was so much more love between white families and black domestics, that I didn't have the ink or the time to portray. But what I am sure about is this: I don't presume to think that I know what it really felt like to be a black woman in Mississippi, especially the 1960's. I don't think it is something any white woman, on the other end of a black woman's paycheck, could ever truly understand. But trying to understand is vital to our humanity..."

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is my reading group's January read. The book has gotten tremendous praise from reviewers all over, and it was Bookreporter.com's "Book of The Year"! Published by the Penguin Group in February 2009, you can read an excerpt of The Help at the publishers website. And you can also read about what Kathryn felt about her life and writing The Help "In Her Own Words", found on her website KathrynStockett.com.

If you've read The Help, I would love to hear what you thought of the book! And if you're going to read it, either as a group or yourself, Penguin has put together a reading group guide with some thought provoking questions...

Discussion Questions...

1. Who was your favorite character? Why?

2. What do you think motivated Hilly? On the one hand she is terribly cruel to Aibileen and her own help, as well as to Skeeter once she realizes that she can’t control her. Yet she’s a wonderful mother. Do you think that one can be a good mother but, at the same time, a deeply flawed person?

3. Like Hilly, Skeeter’s mother is a prime example of someone deeply flawed yet somewhat sympathetic. She seems to care for Skeeter— and she also seems to have very real feelings for Constantine. Yet the ultimatum she gives to Constantine is untenable; and most of her interaction with Skeeter is critical. Do you think Skeeter’s mother is a sympathetic or unsympathetic character? Why?

4. How much of a person’s character would you say is shaped by the times in which they live?

5. Did it bother you that Skeeter is willing to overlook so many of Stuart’s faults so that she can get married, and that it’s not until he literally gets up and walks away that the engagement falls apart?

6. Do you believe that Minny was justified in her distrust of white people?

7. Do you think that had Aibileen stayed working for Miss Elizabeth, that Mae Mobley would have grown up to be racist like her mother? Do you think racism is inherent, or taught?

8. From the perspective of a twenty-first century reader, the hairshellac system that Skeeter undergoes seems ludicrous. Yet women still alter their looks in rather peculiar ways as the definition of “beauty” changes with the times. Looking back on your past, what’s the most ridiculous beauty regimen you ever underwent?

9. The author manages to paint Aibileen with a quiet grace and an aura of wisdom about her. How do you think she does this?

10. Do you think there are still vestiges of racism in relationships where people of color work for people who are white?

11. What did you think about Minny’s pie for Miss Hilly? Would you have gone as far as Minny did for revenge?

Happy Reading... Suzanne

*P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready! (available under $9!) And the hardcover edition of The Help is available from Amazon.com for $9.50 right now! That's 62% off!

The Sunday Salon... The Short Story, Treat or Tease? and Short Story Collections with Buzz!

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake...

I read an article from The Guardian UK about 2009 being the year of the short story... It made me think if I ever really indulged in reading short stories, and my answer to myself was no. I have enjoyed reading the occasional short story in The New Yorker and even the Strand Magazine, but really my short story collection in books was lacking. After seeing Brokeback Mountain I wanted to read the short story it was born from, and my dear brother send me a copy of Annie Proulx's Close Range: Wyoming Stories, which was a wonderful book to sit down and relax with, and the writing was beautiful. This year I did buy a copy of Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan, a story collection set in war torn Africa that was also full of powerful stories and was wonderfully written. AND, I received and read a wonderful collection of short fiction from Midge Raymond called Forgetting English (I'll be reviewing that soon)... So, I have decided to make a effort to read more short stories.

Of course reading short stories is a different reading experience. Each story is like a novel, that deserves to be digested properly, and thus slowing down a bit and taking a breather between stories in a collection seems only fair. And if you're on a tight budget with time, a short story can satisfy your reading needs without a longer obligation. Other questions about a short story collection, do you feel obligated to read the whole book of short stories all at once or are short stories meant to be enjoyed in between larger novels? Or just randomly enjoyed at will? I think am going to want to finish the whole book of short stories before moving on to another book... and I am going to force myself to close the book after each story to enjoy the story that usually lingers afterward (I started Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender and after enjoying the first story went right into the second and felt like I was rushing even though it was just enthusiasm for the writing that was propelling me forward). Short stories also let you sample a writer (if they've written any) before investing in a full blown novel. Kind of reading the first chapter, but you get a wrap up at the end.... So here are some Short Story Collections I've heard about with Buzz...

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro... "In the first story a young wife and mother receives release from the unbearable pain of losing her three children from a most surprising source. In another, a young woman, in the aftermath of an unusual and humiliating seduction, reacts in a clever if less-than-admirable fashion. Other stories uncover the “deep-holes” in a marriage, the unsuspected cruelty of children, and how a boy’s disfigured face provides both the good things in his life and the bad. And in the long title story, we accompany Sophia Kovalevsky—a late-nineteenth-century Russian émigré and mathematician—on a winter journey that takes her from the Riviera, where she visits her lover, to Paris, Germany, and Denmark, where she has a fateful meeting with a local doctor, and finally to Sweden, where she teaches at the only university in Europe willing to employ a female mathematician. With clarity and ease, Alice Munro once again renders complex, difficult events and emotions into stories that shed light on the unpredictable ways in which men and women accommodate and often transcend what happens in their lives." *This Book is Kindle Ready!

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie... Adichie has been amazing the literary world with her writing since her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which was called “one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years”, “prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes”. In The Thing Around Your Neck, "Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and theUnited States. In “A Private Experience,” a medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she’s been pushing away. In “Tomorrow is Too Far,” a woman unlocks the devastating secret that surrounds her brother’s death. The young mother at the center of “Imitation” finds her comfortable life in Philadelphia threatened when she learns that her husband has moved his mistress into their Lagos home. And the title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected; though falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to reexamine them. Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie’s signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them. *This Book is Kindle Ready!

Walk the Blue Fields: Stories by Claire Keegan... "An unforgettable array of quietly wrenching stories about despair and desire in the timeless world of modern-day Ireland. In the never-before-published story “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll’s old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder, whose ulterior motives only emerge as the night progresses. In the title story, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage and, during the ceremony and the festivities that follow, battles his memories of a love affair with the bride that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life; later that night, he finds an unlikelyanswer in the magical healing powers of a seer. A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past and of individuals eking out their futures."

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver... Raymond Carver is touted an a master of the short story. Numerous writers say how influential his writing was to them. He is said to be an economical writer, getting to the point in few words, but the words he choses are perfect. "This powerful collection of stories, set in the mid-west among the lonely men and women who drink, fish and play cards to ease the passing of time. With its spare, colloquial narration and razor-sharp sense of how people really communicate, the collection was to become one of the most influential literary works of the 1980's. "

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor... Flannery O'Connor With an keen eye for the dark side of human nature, an amazing ear for dialogue, and a necessary sense of irony, Flannery O'Conner exposes the underside of life in the rural south of the United States. One of the powers in her writing lies in her ability to make the vulnerability of one into that of many; another is her mastery of shifting "control" from character to character, making the outcome uncertain. Sexual and racial attitudes, poverty and riches, adolescence, old age, and being thirty-four which "wasn't any age at all" are only some of the issues touched on in this collection. When Ruby has to walk up the "steeple steps...[that]...reared up" as she climbed to her fourth floor apartment, we feel her pain as she "gripped the banister rail fiercely and heaved herself up another step..." Flannery O'Conner, a 1972 National Book Award winner, reminds us that none of the roles in our lives is stagnant and that wearing blinders takes away more than just a view. Through her stories we see that what we blind ourselves to is bound to appear again and again.

A few other books to consider are Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender. The L.A. Times compares her writing to "Hemingway on an acid trip", as her stories border on fantasy, are bizarre (in a good way), and her writing is good. Annie Proulx's Close Range: Wyoming Stories. Annie just writes beautifully! Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnya. Vapnya's collection of 6 short stories serves up insights into the intimate relationship of food and love among recent Russian immigrants.

What do you think about short story collections? Yes or No? Not enough or special occasion? And do you have any recommendations?! Share some of the collections you've read! And BTW, some people consider Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout a collections of stories (some consider it a novel), what do you think?

**Short Stories Update! Thanks to Brittanie from A Book Lover I found out about The Short Story Reading Challenge hosted by Katie S. To participate you can read as little as 10 different short stories from 10 different authors or commit to read 5 to 10 short story collections over the course of 2010. Follow the link above to read how to sign up (I just did!), and even if you're not going to sign up, there are lists of short story collections shared by the participants so you can learn about more short stories you should add to your reading!

Happy reading.... Suzanne

Seduced By A Rogue Blog Tour & Review

Be Seduced By A Rogue...

And Enter the World of 14th Century Scotland and Amanda Scott!

A fair-haired beauty at 19, Lady Mairi is heiress apparent to her father Lord Dunwythie's rich barony. He has carefully taught her how to manage their estates, but a feud between his clan and the Maxwell clan is brewing as the two families edge toward a clan war - their dispute over money owed. Mairi's father believes he owes nothing, and of course Mairi sides with him.

When the impulsive and blue-eyed Rob Maxwell chances to meet Mairi in a barley field, they feel instant attraction, despite their families' antagonisms. Knowing he must put his clan first, Rob enacts a plan to force Dunwythie to pay his debt: Rob kidnaps Mairi, making the abduction appear the work of a stranger; then he and his sheriff-brother offer to help Dunwythis rescue his daughter IF, and only if, he will pay them the monies due. Yet after Rob captures Mairi's body, she captures his heart. When Dunwythie summons the aid of the most powerful clan in all Scotland (the Douglases), clan-tensions rise to a fever pitch. Love takes its own feverish course, as Mairi and Rob join forces to prevent a clash between hot-headed clans, and to protect their budding love.

What did I think?... Seduced by a Rogue is enchanting! The characters were rich and likeable. The setting in Scotland was wonderful with authentic touches of language and scenery. You can tell that Amanda knows her history, especially when writing of the intricacies of the clans. At the beginning of the story Amanda writes in her Author's Note explaining some of the language and some of the references that the reader may not be familiar with, but these touches are what allows us to travel back in time to experience the world of Lady Mairi Dunwythie in the 14th century. The romance between Lady Mairi and the clan warrior Robert Maxwell starts at a slow boil and finally sizzles! Plus Amanda has a wonderful sense of humor- I found myself smiling out loud at some of the wonderful situations between Mairi & Rob. I love historical romances and Seduced By A Rogue is a terrific read. Amanda is a wonderful storyteller!

About Amanda... Amanda Scott, best-selling author and winner of the Romance Writers of America's RITA/Golden Medallion and The Romantic Times' awards for Best Regency Author and Best Sensual Regency, began writing on a dare from her husband. She has sold every manuscript she has written. More than twenty-five of her books are set in the English Regency period (1810-1820), others are set in fifteenth-century England and sixteenth-and eighteenth-century Scotland. Three are contemporary romances. Learn more about Amanda at Hachette Book Group HERE! And here's a link to Amanda's homepage where you can check out ALL her books!

Chick with Books is part of Seduced by a Rogue Blog Tour! Amanda is making other stops along the way to promote her book this month between Jan.6th - Jan. 20th, here's the other blogs you can find her:

http://jensbooktalk.blogspot.com/, www.bibliophilicbookblog.com, www.chickwithbooks.blogspot.com, http://justanothernewblog.blogspot.com/, http://myoverstuffedbookshelf.blogspot., http://brokenteepee.blogspot.com, http://www.saveyspender.com, http://www.kballard87.blogspot.com, http://thecajunbooklady.blogspot.com/, http://myfoolishwisdom.blogspot.com,

http://www.renees-reads.blogspot.com/, http://dreyslibrary.blogspot.com http://marthasbookshelf.blogspot.com/, http://www.mybookaddictionandmore.wordpress.com, http://bridget3420.blogspot.com, my-book-views.blogspot.com, http://juniperrbreeeze.blogspot.com/, http://star-shadowcreativeconcepts.blogspot.com, http://www.morbidromantic.net, http://www.betweenthelinesandmore.blogspot.com /, http://redheadedbookchild.blogspot.com, http://myreadingroom-crystal.blogspot.com, http://www.masoncanyon.blogspot.com, http://startingfresh-gaby317.blogspot.com/, http://therempels4.blogspot

Thank you to Anna from Hachette Book Group for sending a copy of Seduced By A Rogue for me to review!Thanks Anna I really enjoyed it! Seduced by A Rogue was just released this week in paperback, And it's Kindle Ready!

Memoir Mondays... Fall to Pieces by Mary Forsberg Weiland, a Memoir of Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll and Mental Illness

A Memoir of Drugs, Rock 'n Roll, and Mental Illness

In Fall to Pieces, Mary Forsberg Weiland shows us how a life full of promise can be shattered with drug abuse. And how mental illness is a disease that can be 'hidden' for a very long time...

International model, wife of her childhood sweetheart rocker Scott Weiland of the Stone Temple Pilots, and mother of 2, Mary Forsberg Weiland seemed to have an envious life. But with amazing candor Mary opens up the pages of her life to us and shows us what a roller coaster life her life was, first with her mother & father growing up, then as a young girl living the life of a international model, and finally in the lavish world of Rock 'n Roll. In writing Fall to Pieces Mary Forsberg Weiland could have relied on name dropping and a white wash of her drug abuse, but she doesn't. She shares with us the people around her that were her friends, the life she lived as a model and then as a celebrity wife.

In the prologue we get an up close and personal look at Mary shooting up heroin for the first time, it's direct and graphic. From there we read about her normal, hardworking family, rehabs, relapses, jail and her bipolar disease. Hey, we even get a look at the Barbizon School of Modeling! Fall to Pieces is well written and poignant. It's not just about Rock 'n Roll, but about a girl struggling to grow up when the odds were against her. It's about the consequences of the choices we make. Mary is likeable and you'll be entranced by her story, turning those pages to see how things turn out...

I want to thank Imran of Meryl L. Moss Media Relations, Inc. for sending Fall to Pieces my way! Thank you Imran it was a great read! Fall to Pieces was published this past November, and is Kindle Ready!

Giveaway: The Gate House by Nelson DeMille!

#1 New York Times bestselling author

Nelson DeMille delivers the long-awaited follow-up to his classic novel The Gold Coast...

Get Ready for a Great Read!

Congratulations to Greg, Linda and Vicki!

They have each won a copy of The Gate House!

Thank you to everyone who joined in on the fun!

When John Sutter's aristocratic wife killed her Mafia don lover, John left America and set out in his sailboat on a three-year journey around the world, eventually settling in London. Now, ten years later, he has come home to the Gold Coast, that stretch of land on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America, to attend the imminent funeral of an old family servant. Taking up temporary residence in the gatehouse of Stanhope Hall, John finds himself living only a quarter of a mile from Susan who has also returned to Long Island. But Susan isn't the only person from John's past who has reemerged: Though Frank Bellarosa, infamous Mafia don and Susan's ex-lover, is long dead, his son, Anthony, is alive and well, and intent on two missions: Drawing John back into the violent world of the Bellarosa family, and exacting revenge on his father's murderer--Susan Sutter. At the same time, John and Susan's mutual attraction resurfaces and old passions begin to reignite, and John finds himself pulled deeper into a familiar web of seduction and betrayal. In The Gate House, acclaimed author Nelson DeMille brings us back to that fabled spot on the North Shore -- a place where past, present, and future collides with often unexpected results.

Would you like to read an excerpt? Here's a LINK! Like to win a copy for yourself? You are in the right place! Courtesy of Valerie of Hachette Book Group, I have 3 copies for a GIVEAWAY!

Thanks Valerie!

To Enter this giveaway...

*For one entry leave me a comment with your email address!

*Get an extra entry for following my blog! Just leave a comment letting me know you're a follower! ( Not a follower yet? No problem, sign up by clicking on the 'followers" button! Just let me know you became a new follower!)

*Blog or tweet about this giveaway and leave me the link.

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only.(No PO boxes). The books will be shipped to the winners directly from the publisher. Contest ends 11:59pm EST on Nov.28th. I will randomly pick the winners the next day and email them! (please check your email.. winner must reply to me within 3 days! Thanks!) Good Luck!

Nelson DeMille is also the author of: By the Rivers of Babylon, Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, The General's Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion's Game, Up Country, Night Fall, and Wild Fire.

P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!

Kindle Korner... Kindle goes International, Chick with Books is on Kindle Now!, and some Great Kindle Book Bargains!

The Kindle Leaves U.S. for a European Vacation...

Like Reading this Blog? It's Kindle Ready!

And a few great bargains in the Kindle Store....

The Day we've allbeen waiting for happens this coming Monday Oct. 19th... Kindle goes International with the release of the Kindle 2 U.S. and International Wireless version! This new version for our international friends is priced at $279. With the Kindle 2 (non-international version) price lowering to $259 from it's original $299! What does all this mean for you? It means that all of us traveling abroad can take our Kindle with us and have the ability to download books ! U.S. Kindle owners with the new Kindle 2 international traveling abroad will have to pay a $1.99 fee to download books wirelessly and pay a $4.99 weekly fee for subscriptions to periodical, blogs etc., but there is no fee for downloading books via your computer and then transferring to your Kindle with the USB. Amazon has a page devoted to information related to traveling with your Kindle HERE. Would you like to see if there's coverage where you live? Here's a link to Amazon's coverage map . So, have you still been waiting to buy that Kindle? I'd like to know if you live in the U.S. if you're going to buy the Kindle 2 International? If you travel outside the U.S. then the Kindle international version is a definite choice, but what if... What if you're swept off your feet to Paris, or Madrid, or Florence and you don't have an international version Kindle 2? What are you going to do then?! Let me know...

Now a little Kindle news from home... Chick with Books is Kindle Ready! That's right, you can now subscribe to my blog thru Amazon and read it on your Kindle! With a few tweaks, and lot's of encouragement, I officially launched it Sept. 13th! With the official announcement by Len Edgerly on his Oct. 2nd podcast of The Kindle Chronicles. What's nice about having the blog on Kindle is each post is listed as an article, and you can scroll thru the list of articles to find the Sunday Salon book recommendations, a particular review, or any other post you'll like to find easily. If you take your Kindle with you, like my husband does when I drag him to the bookstore, you have all those book recommendations at the click of a button. If you see something you'd like to remember while reading the blog on the Kindle, you can click on my "Kindle Ready" link and you're able to add the book to your Amazon.com wishlist. It would be great to have a link right to the first chapter, but you have to actually go into the Kindle store to be able to do that. After subscribing you'll automatically get an archive of the previous months posts too. PLUS, the first 2 weeks of your subscription is FREE! SO, let me know what you think! Subscribe for the 2 weeks for free and try it out! It's easy to subscribe! (It's also easy to cancel, but would love it if you like it enough to keep!) Right now it's priced at $1.99 a month, but you won't be charged until after the 2 week trial period ends... Here's the LINK! And if you do subscribe, let me know what you like and don't like about the blog on Kindle!

Now, some great Kindle bargains...

The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry... For all of you that enjoyed the Da Vinci Code comes Steve Berry's take on ancient religious secrets. Ex-U.S. Justice Department agent Cotton Malone is intrigued when he sees a purse snatcher fling himself from a Copenhagen tower to avoid capture, slitting his own throat on the way down for good measure. Further snooping introduces him to the medieval religious order of the Knights Templar and the fervid subculture searching for the Great Devise, an ancient Templar archive that supposedly disproves the Resurrection and demolishes traditional Christian dogma. The trail leads to a French village replete with arcane clues to the archive's whereabouts, and to an oddball cast of scholar-sleuths, including Cassiopeia Vitt, a rich Muslim woman whose special-ops chops rival Malone's. The Templar Legacy is Free until Dec. 1st! Here is the Kindle Ready Link.

The Keeper by Sarah Langan... A little Horror for the month of Halloween! Some believe Bedford, Maine, is cursed. Its bloody past, endless rain, and the decay of its downtown portend a hopeless future. With the death of its paper mill, Bedford's unemployed residents soon find themselves with far toomuch time to dwell on thoughts of Susan Marley. Once the local beauty, she's now the local whore. Silently prowling the muddy streets, she watches eerily from the shadows, waiting for . . . something. And haunting the sleep of everyone in town with monstrous visions of violence and horror. Those who are able will leave Bedford before the darkness fully ascends. But those who are trapped here—from Susan Marley's long-suffering mother and younger sister to her guilt-ridden, alcoholic ex-lover to the destitute and faithless with nowhere else to go—will soon know the fullest and most terrible meaning of nightmare. The Keeper is Free right now! Here is the Kindle Ready link!

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields... This book is a favorite Book Group Read! In 1995 The Stone Diaries won the Pulitzer Prize. This fictionalized autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett is a subtle but affecting portrait of an everywoman reflecting on an unconventional life. What transforms this seemingly ordinary tale is the richness of Daisy's vividly described inner life—from her earliest memories of her adoptive mother to her awareness of impending death. The problem that Carol Shields addresses in The Stone Diaries: how do small lives, the kind most women were once assumed to lead, assume significance and coherence? How closely do our versions of those lives correspond to objective facts? Can facts be said to exist at all in the context of something as changeable and arbitrary as a life? To what extent do "our" stories really belong to us, considering the tendency that other people - parents, spouses, children - have to intrude in them, interpret them, claim them? This book is a bargain at $3.74! Here is the Kindle Ready link!

And last but not least, a free pre-order at the Kindle Store...

Witch and Wizard by James Patterson... The world is changing—the government has seized control of almost everything and kids are disappeari

ng. For 15 year-old Wisty and her older brother Whit, life turns upside-down when they are hauled out of bed one night, separated from their parents, and thrown into a secret compound for no reason they can comprehend, except that the new government is clearly trying to suppress Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Imprisoned together in a decrepit cell, Wisty and Whit cling to the only things they have left—a blank book, a drum stick, and each other. While searching for ways to escape, both begin exhibiting strange abilities. Maybe there is a reason they were singled out! Can Wisty and Whit, a witch and a wizard, master their skills in time to save themselves, their parents—and maybe the world? From James Patterson, the creator of the bestselling Maximum Ride and Daniel X novels, comes WITCH & WIZARD, his most terrifying and awe-inspiring series yet. This is book 1 of the new series. Amazon is calling this a free preview, but from what I can find on the internet this will be the full book. The Book comes out October 26th, so download your free copy now while you still can! Here is the Kindle Ready link.

Hope you find something interesting here! If you've found any other great Kindle bargains, please share them here! And if you've read any of this Kindle Korners recommendations, share what you thought!

Happy reading...

Suzanne