Celebrating Memoir Monday and My 2nd Blogiversary!

Memoir Mondays... A long long time ago, actually in Sept. 2009, I decided that there were so many great memoirs coming into my hands that I would do a weekly feature. That feature became Memoir Mondays and almost every monday since, I've reviewed, highlighted and chatted about memoirs. Last year there seemed to be an explosion of celebrity memoirs, and we've had our share of furry and four legged memoirs, not to mention the memoir of a Goldfish last year too! But no matter whose memoir, there was always that something that resonated with us... something we had in common, or a feeling we could share that made us want to open up that book, or take a better look at, and discover someone else's story, that may not be so far from our own. What makes you pick up that memoir? Why do you enjoy reading about the life of someone else?

This week is the week of my 2nd Blogiversary! (You probably knew that already!), and today to celebrate I'm giving you a chance to take a deeper look at one of those memoirs! Today I'm giving away any one of the memoirs I've highlighted or reviewed in the past year since my last Blogiversary to one lucky reader! Which memoir will you choose if you win?! Maybe something with Wild Snails? Or Birds? Or a girl dressed in orange? Come join in the fun! Enter the Memoir Monday Giveaway by filling out the form below! And since this is all about memoirs, tell me why you like reading them! *Remember, all the information I receive is private and for my eyes only. Here's all the particulars...

To Enter the Memoir Monday Giveaway...

* First, take a look at all the memoirs I highlighted on a Memoir Monday from Feb. 18th, 2010 - Feb. 14th, 2011. You can find those Memoir Monday posts by going to the Blog Archive in my sidebar on the left of the blog and clicking on a year or a month and looking through the Memoir Monday posts. *remember the book needs to be from a Memoir Monday post...

* Fill out the form below with your name, email, and answer why you like reading memoirs, plus your mailing address so I know where to send the book if you are chosen as the lucky winner.

* Anyone can join in on the fun as long as I can mail a book to you using the US Postal Service, or for International Participants, The Book Depository can mail you a book.

*This Giveaway will end February 28, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. I will randomly pick a winner the next day. Good luck!

The Edge of Sight by Roxanne St. Claire... Blog Tour & Review

The killer she can't escape . . .

The heartbreak she can't forget . . .

The one man who can stop them both.

Edge of Sight by Roxanne St. Claire

When Samantha Fairchild witnesses a murder in the wine cellar of the restaurant where she works, the Harvard-bound law student becomes the next target of a professional assassin. Desperate for protection the authorities won't provide, Sam seeks help from Vivi Angelino, an investigative reporter who recruits her brother, Zach, to protect Samantha. A Special Forces vet with the scars to prove he's equally fearless and flawed, Zach takes the job, despite the fact that he and Sam once shared a lusty interlude that ended when he left for war and disappeared from her life. Now, as they crack a conspiracy that leads to Boston's darkest corners, Sam and Zach must face their fears, desires, and doubts, before a hired killer gets a second shot...

I absolutely LOVED this book! Edge of Sight had just the right mix of suspense AND romance! The writing was great and I was hooked right from the start! At the beginning of the book, when Samantha Fairchild was huddled in that wine cellar, hiding from the killer, I was right there with her holding my breathe! And I actually kept holding it for quite some time because the suspense was that "edge of your seat" kind that just kept me turning those pages. No wimpy heroine here either, Samantha is a strong lead character with enough femininity to hold the attention of the man who ends up protecting her and falling back in love with her, Zach Angelino. There's enough sexual tension and passion between Zach and Samantha to keep romance readers happy (really happy!), but there's also a interesting plot. As the story progresses all the characters become fully fleshed out as you learn their backgrounds and connections. Things aren't all serious though, because Roxanne St. Claire adds some lighter moments to the investigation, as Vivi Angelino, Samantha's best friend and sister of that hunk Zach, forms her new security company, the Guardian Angelinos, in which Zach will provide the protection for their first pro bono client, Samantha Fairchild, and Vivi will do the investigation into the murders. As the plot weaves in and out, we actually are following what the killer is thinking and doing too, which just makes it even more interesting. And let's not forget the wrap up because that's good too! PLUS, there will be more from The Guardian Angelinos ( Zach never did get Vivi to change the name!) in Roxanne St. Claire's next two books Shiver of Fear and Face of Danger! But before we get to the next two books (which you can read excerpts from by clicking on those titles), let's read The Prequel to Edge of Sight! Taken To The Edge is the prequel to Edge of Sight...the short story of how Sam and Zach met, their passionate fling, and painful parting. You can read it for free on Roxanne St. Claire's website!

Chick with Books is part of the Edge of Sight Blog Tour! I want to thank Hachette Book Group for the review copy of Edge of Sight! And thank Roxanne St. Claire for a wonderful start to what looks to be a great series! Don't forget to check out Roxanne St. Claire's guest post later today on Chick with Books!

The Sunday Salon... Books with Buzz that Travel Through Europe during Times of War

Hey, it's Sunday! Welcome to The Sunday Salon! Pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of Joe and settle in for a bit of book talk! Fall seemed to settle in, in Connecticut. We threw a few logs in the wood stove at night, and put a jacket on as we stepped out the front door in the morning. Fall also seems to be the time of year for some great reading! Today we'll be traveling through Europe with the books that caught my eye this week, as well as seeing a bit of war - first we take a trip to northern Spain during the Spanish Civil War, then we'll head to England during WWII, and finally a stop in the French Pyranees after The Great War, or WWI...

The Wrong Blood by Manuel De Lope... In the Basque Country in northern Spain, just before the Civil War, three men in dinner suits stop for a drink at a bar before continuing on their way to a wedding. Their trip is interrupted when their leader, the wealthy Don Leopoldo, has a stroke in the restroom.This event, bizarre and undignified though it is, begins to weave together the lives of two remarkable women: the bride, the beautiful and distinguished Isabel Cruces, and María Antonia Etxarri, the bar owner’s adolescent daughter. Shortly after the outbreak of the war, María Antonia is raped and Isabel’s newlywed husband, Captain Julen Herraiz, is shot. Both women find themselves violently altered, alone, and pregnant. A crippled but wise local doctor is the only witness to the mysterious, silent agreement these women conclude in the loneliness and desperation of their mutual suffering. Many years later, a young student, grandson to Isabel, returns to the scene of the events to spend an innocent summer studying for law exams. As he goes about his work, he unwittingly awakens the ghosts haunting both María Antonia and the doctor, and through their memories the passionate stories of the past unfurl before the reader.

The Wrong Blood has gotten great reviews, particularly for its beautiful writing and imagery. The novel starts out sixty years after the war, and moves back and forth to the time of the war. I love novels that transport me back in time and I'm looking forward to that in this novel, which is on my TBR list! This is also the first novel translated into to English by the Spanish author, Manuel De Lope. This book has been recommended for people who enjoyed Shadow in the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, not so much for the story, but the similar writing style. The Wrong Blood is available now from your local bookstore! *P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton... A long lost letter arrives in the post and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle, a great but moldering old house, where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13 year old child during WW II. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941. Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ‘the distant hours’ of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.

This sounds wonderful! Secrets revealed, a crumbling castle, exploring the past! Fans of The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton will be happy to find another book to devour by the author- this time a romantic thriller. Pre-release reviews have given The Distant Hours great reviews, although some thought that it was a little long. I'm still excited about this book, whose release date is officially November 9th! *P.S. This Book will be Kindle Ready!

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse... A compelling story of ghosts and remembrance. The Great War took much more than lives. It robbed a generation of friends, lovers and futures. In Freddie Watson's case, it took his beloved brother and, at times, his peace of mind. In the winter of 1928, still seeking resolution, Freddie is travelling through the French Pyrenees. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. He stumbles through woods, emerging in a tiny village. There he meets Fabrissa, a beautiful woman also mourning a lost generation. Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories. By the time dawn breaks, he will have stumbled across a tragic mystery that goes back through the centuries. By turns thrilling, poignant and haunting, this is a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage.

Another great story that moves between the past and the present, The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse has been referred to as an "old school" ghost story. This story started out as a novella called The Cave and was written for the Quick Reads campaign to encourage adult literacy. The writing is not as "complex" as other books written by Kate Mosse, or as long (only 272 pages), but The Winter Ghosts has gotten thumbs up reviews, and should be an enjoyable quick read. The Winter Ghosts is currently available (although on back order) at UK bookstores such as The Book Depository, and will be released here in The States Feb. 11th, 2011. (I guess that would make this a UK Fall read and a US Winter read...)

There are plenty of biographies and memoirs coming out too! But we'll chat about that tomorrow for Memoir Monday. In the meantime, I'll be picking winners for the giveaways for Dewey's Nine Lives by Vicky Myron, Dewey the Small-Town Library Cat by Vicky Myron, and The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris. If you missed entering the giveaways you can still read my reviews by following the links. AND there's still time to enter the giveaways for Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye (a great father & son book), and The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett.

Have a great rest of the weekend! And don't forget to share what you've been reading too! I'd love to hear what books YOU spotted this week on your reading adventures!

The Sunday Salon and Treasures Found at a Used Book Store

Happy Sunday! Pull up a chair and relax, grab a cup of iced joe ( it is about 80 degrees outside right now!) and welcome to The Sunday Salon! All over the blogosphere, bookish people are virtually sitting down together to talk about something they love... BOOKS!

I've been on vacation this week and enjoying the nice weather, catching up on some reading and of course exploring some bookish things! One thing I wanted to do while on vacation this year was take a leisurely drive to The Book Barn! So today I thought I would share what books I brought home with me. It's always an adventure going to used book stores or sales. And I happily came home with a bag of books. But first, what is The Book Barn? The Book Barn is located in Niantic, Ct. and its primary mission is "uniting people and books together in biblioholic bliss." And with over 350,000 used books housed in 5 buildings and numerous kiosks on the grounds, it is amazing. The atmosphere is light, fun, almost like being at a country fair. It's kid friendly, spouse friendly (plenty of outside seating), and there are friendly cats (which found my DH and his Kindle very companionable) that wonder in, out and all around the buildings.

First there is the Main Barn where you'll find art, history, children's and teen books. Then there is The Annex, which is where I found fiction, poetry and romance. Hades is where you'll find the mass market paperbacks before finding their permanent homes (see photo on right). It's called Hades because they aren't alphabetical, just grouped in categories. Next I wondered into The Haunted! This is where the mysteries are! And then I wondered to The Last Page, which is where their "last chance" books are and more obscure titles, although the Nature books were in there, and I did find a great old bird book!

So, what about the books I can home with?! First book I picked up was Promise Not To Tell byJennifer McMahon. I really enjoyed her last book, Dismantled, which was this great murder mystery/thriller/ghost story. And I also enjoyed her book Island of Lost Girls, which was another literary mystery part coming-of-age story. Promise Not To Tell is Jennifer McMahon's debut novel. This is what Publisher's Weekly says about it..."Part mystery-thriller and part ghost story, McMahon's well-paced debut alternates smoothly between past and present. In the fall of 2002, 41-year-old Kate Cypher, a divorced Seattle school nurse, returns to New Hope, the decaying Vermont hippie commune where she grew up, to visit her elderly mother, Jean, who's suffering from Alzheimer's. Kate has avoided New Hope since the grizzly, unsolved murder of her fifth-grade friend, Del Griswold, 31 years earlier. Kate fears she betrayed Del, a free-spirited farm girl. Did her betrayal cause Del's death? Who killed Del? Another local girl is murdered in a similar manner at the time of Kate's return. Could the killer be loose again? Meanwhile, Jean appears to be possessed with Del's spirit and may have the answers to these questions. As Kate investigates, she learns stunning truths about many events and people from her youth." I'm really looking forward to reading this. Jennifer McMahon's writing is great and she really has the ability to get underneath the skin of her characters.

Next book I picked up was Evermore by Alyson Noel. I know I'm a little late getting to this series, but now that I've finished the Twilight series, I thought I would try some of the other YA literature I've heard great things about. This is what Booklist writes about Evermore... "This opening book in a new series, The Immortals, will thrill many teen fantasy-suspense readers, especially fans of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. Seventeen-year-old Ever survived the car crash that killed her parents, younger sister, and their dog. Now she lives with an aunt in Southern California, plagued not only by survivor guilt but also by a new ability to hear the thoughts of all around her. She tries to tune out all these distractions by keeping her hoodie up and her iPod cranked loud, until Damen, the cute new boy at school, convinces her to come out of her shell. Damen, however, is frighteningly clever—and has the strange ability to produce tulips from nowhere and disappear himself at critical moments. Noël creates a cast of recognizably diverse teens in a realistic high-school setting, along with just the right tension to make Ever’s discovery of her own immortality—should she choose it—exciting and credible." There are 4 books in the "Immortal" series, the latest, Dark Flame, just released last month. The series has gotten good reviews, and I'm up for a new series. Has anyone read these yet? What did you think? What series would you recommend?

Next pick was The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. Eudora Welty is one of our great American authors who wrote stories and novels about the American South. She lived during the Great Depression and won numerous awards, including The Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for her novel, The Optimist's Daughter. I signed up for the Short Story Challenge this year and have been enjoying the sampling of stories written by some great authors. So, since I have Eudora's book The Optimist's Daughter in my TBR pile, it felt natural to pick this up too!

Then I saw a copy of Waiting by Ha Jin. I had always meant to read this book. It even won the National Book Award in 1999. A love story, and a love triangle that spans 18 years. Here's what the publishers write... "This is the story of Lin Kong, a man living in two worlds, struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women as he moves through the political minefields of a society designed to regulate his every move and stifle the promptings of his inner most heart. For more than seventeen years, this devoted and ambitious doctor has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young--a humble and touchingly loyal woman, whom he visits in order to ask, again and again, for a divorce. In a culture in which the ancient ties of tradition and family still hold sway and where adultery discovered by the Party can ruin lives forever, Lin's passionate love is stretched ever more taut by the passing years. Every summer, his compliant wife agrees to a divorce but then backs out. This time, Lin promises, will be different. Tracing these lives through their summer of decision and beyond, Ha Jin vividly conjures the texture of daily life in a place where the demands of human longing must contend with the weight of centuries of custom". I really enjoy Japanese fiction and part of that enjoyment is being able to glimpse inside a culture I am not familiar with. Ha Jin accomplishes giving us a glimpse into the Chinese culture with Waiting. This story is also based on a true story Ha Jin was told by his wife. This book is now going to make into the TBR pile.

Finally, I made my way to the mystery building (The Haunted) and not being frightened away by any ghosts, I picked up some Stuart Woods. Now I mentioned Stuart Woods in my "Literal" Beach Reads post last month, and how he writes a series of mystery thrillers with a female police chief by the name of Holly Barker. So for the bargain price of $1 each, I picked up Orchid Beach, Blood Orchid, Orchid Blues and Reckless Abandon. Holly's series are all "Orchid" books, but Reckless Abandon is both Holly Barker and Stuart Woods other great character Stone Barrington, a lawyer with a detectives mind. I recently listened to the audiobook Hot Mahogany by Stuart Woods and loved the story (and the narrator!), and thought it was about time to invite Stuart Woods into the mix. (BTW, I'll also be posting the review of Hot Mahogany soon, so keep your eyes out for that!)

Final thoughts on The Book Barn... Prices were reasonable with trade paperbacks mostly $4, Teen trades were $3, Hardback prices varied, and mass market paperbacks were a dollar each. Conditions of books varied too, but the books I carried home with me, with the exception of Waiting by Ha Jin, were in excellent condition. Waiting by Ha Jin's cover was well worn, but otherwise in very good condition. So, I have plenty of "oldies but goodies" in the TBR pile and had fun wondering around thousands of books! I could have put so much more in that bag, but tried to remember that once they were home, I'd have to find a place to put them! Oh, and the staff were very friendly, helping people find books they wanted and recommended books to some of the teens looking to grab a good read.

So, that was my week, how was yours!? Do you enjoy used book sales? What "Book Barns" are near you?! And what books caught your attention this week?! And what books filled the void you felt after finishing Twilight?! The Giveaway for Into The Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea ended last night, so I'll be picking the winners today, but there's still time to enter the Giveaway for The Impostor's Daughter by Laurie Sandell, which is such a fun memoir drawn like a graphic novel. And girls you will laugh! There's also still time to enter the Giveaway for Barely a Lady by Eileen Dreyer, a sexy romance during the time of Waterloo. A sneak peek at next week... a Giveaway for an audiobook! Think James Patterson and his newest book, Private!

Happy reading! Thanks for stopping by!.... Suzanne