The Sunday Salon... Week in review, Mystery Award Winners, and a Book that's Sure to be a Hit with Reading Groups!

Grab a cup of joe and relax... It's Sunday! A day to sit back, collect your thoughts and reflect on the week you just had... I've been in prison the better part of the week, getting through what seemed to be endless days with my sanity intact, Piper Kerman and the group of women that make up Piper's circle of friends in Orange is the New Black. (Review coming soon...) I've shared some time with 2 larger than life women, Violet and Sally, while their lives go horribly out of control in This One is Mine by Maria Semple. And if all that weren't enough, I floated down the Mississippi with a keen eye and Abe Lincoln at the ready hunting Vampires in Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. Imagine Anne Rice writing as Mark Twain and you’ve got an idea of what to expect when reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. I actually listened to the audiobook on my iPod and I can’t tell you how great this story was! With all the mashups these days with Zombies and Sea Monsters, Vampires fit right in, but Seth creates such an amazing combination of history with old world vampires, that I was transfixed by the story. These are not the vampires of Stephanie Meyers’ “Twilight” series, these are the kind of vampires Anne Rice wrote about! You may be saying to yourself, "Vampires and Abe Lincoln?", but believe me it really works, AND there's still time to enter the giveaway I'm having for the unabridged audiobook of Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter, which ends May 15th... Of course all that Vampire Hunting, prison food and drama can make a girl hungry, so I sat down with Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and her daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali and made some Baked Penne & Mushrooms, which by the way is out of this world delicious! I Love reviewing cookbooks, and Lidia's newest cookbook, Lidia Cooks From The Heart of Italy is a wonderful collection of food, recipes, places and people. She really takes us into the little out of the way places, introduces us to the locals and teaches us how to cook some amazing regional fare. Read my review for Lidia Cooks From The Heart of Italy, and enjoy the recipe for that baked Penne while you're there too!

OK all you mystery lovers, the votes are in and the winners have been announced! Nothing like sinking your teeth into a great mystery, and The Edgar Awards, presented by The Mystery Writers of America, honors the best in mystery! Today I thought we'd look at two of those winners, which were announced April 29th, and a book that caught my eye this week in the blogosphere...

The Edgar for Best Novel goes to The Last Child by John Hart. I have a copy of this on my nightstand waiting to be cracked open. This is what the Publisher writes about the novel, Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss,until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he’d been taught since birth to trust. No one else believes that Alyssa is still alive, but Johnny is certain that she is---confident in a way that he can never fully explain... Determined to find his sister, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown. It is a desperate, terrifying search, but Johnny is not as alone as he might think. Detective Clyde Hunt has never stopped looking for Alyssa either, and he has a soft spot for Johnny. He watches over the boy and tries to keep him safe, but when Johnny uncovers a dangerous lead and vows to follow it, Hunt has no choice but to intervene.... Then a second child goes missing . . . Undeterred by Hunt’s threats or his mother’s pleas, Johnny enlists the help of his last friend, and together they plunge into the wild, to a forgotten place with a history of violence that goes back more than a hundred years. There, they meet a giant of a man, an escaped convict on his own tragic quest. What they learn from him will shatter every notion Johnny had about the fate of his sister; it will lead them to another far place, to a truth that will test both boys to the limit. The Last Child has gotten great reviews, and there was a lot of buzz prior to the awards. I can't wait to start reading it myself! You can read the first chapter at John Hart's website. *This Book is Kindle Ready!

The Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Writer goes to In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff. I hadn't heard much about In the Shadow of Gotham prior to its nomination for The Edgar, but that's one of the benefits to being nominated for a literary award- exposure! This book also was nominated for an Agatha Award, which honors "traditional mysteries". I think this is going to be a getting a lot of buzz now, not just because of its winning The Edgar, but for what looks like a great series set in a great time period! In The Shadow of Gotham is the first book in a series featuring Detective Simon Ziele and criminologist Alistair Sinclair. The next book in the series, A Curtain Falls, is due out next month, and already the third book in the series, An Oath of Silence, is planned for release next year. If you love the setting of NYC at the turn of the century this series will strike the right chord, because all the stories take place around then. Here's what the Publisher writes about In The Shadow of Gotham, It is November of 1905... Detective Simon Ziele loses his fiancée in the wreck of the General Slocum steamship disaster and shortly thereafter heads to Westchester County to escape the violence of the city. But just a few months into his tenure, he catches the worst homicide of his career: a young woman is brutally murdered in her own bedroom in the middle of a winter afternoon. A day's investigating leads him to Columbia University's noted criminologist, Alistair Sinclair, and one of his subjects, Michael Fromley, who has a history of violent behavior and brutal fantasies. But what would lead him to target Sarah Wingate, a notable mathematics grad student at Columbia? Is it really Michael behind the murder, or is someone else copying his signatures? This is what Simon Ziele must discover, with the help of the brilliant but self-interested Alistair Sinclair, before the killer strikes again. You can read an excerpt Chapter one of In The Shadow of Gotham at the website of Stephanie Pintoff. *This Book is Kindle Ready!

On Folly Beach by Karen White... This will be Karen White's 13th novel. She characterized On Folly Beach as "grit lit", or part of her Southern women's fiction writing. There already is plenty of buzz about On Folly Beach and it's not even released yet! BUT, this coming tuesday, May 4th, it will be available at your local bookstore. This is what the Publisher wrote about On Folly Beach... Folly Beach, South Carolina, has survived despite hurricanes and war. But it's the personal battles of Folly Beach's residents that have left the most scars, and why a young widow has been beckoned there to heal her own... To most people, Folly Beach is simply the last barrier island before reaching the great Atlantic. To some, it's a sanctuary for lost souls, which is why Emmy Hamilton's mother encourages her to buy the local book store, Folly's Finds, hoping it will distract Emmy from the loss of her husband. Emmy is at first resistant. So much has already changed. But after finding love letters and an image of a beautiful bottle tree in a box of used books from Folly's Finds, she decides to take the plunge. But the seller insists on one condition: Emmy must allow Lulu, the late owner's difficult sister, to continue selling her bottle trees from its back yard. For the most part Emmy ignores Lulu as she sifts through the love letters, wanting to learn more. But the more she discovers about the letters, the more she understands Lulu. As details of a possible murder and a mysterious disappearance during WWII are revealed, the two women discover that circumstances beyond their control, sixty years apart, have brought them together, here on Folly Beach. And it is here that their war-ravaged hearts can find hope for a second chance... On Folly Beach is also being recommended by Reading Group Choices. You can read an excerpt of Chapter One of On Folly Beach at Karen White's website!

So, did I peak your interest with something? Make you hungry for Italian? Let me know what you cracked the spine on this week! And stop by during the week, for some great giveaways, and a review or two on some great books I read recently... Happy reading, Suzanne

The Sunday Salon... Books 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...

Spring has finally sprung in Connecticut! At least for a few days earlier this past week... this weekend, though, it's suppose to rain, rain, and RAIN! But what does a reader do when it rains? Curl up with a good book somewhere quiet! Here are a few books with a lot of great buzz this week that you may want to curl up with yourself...

Walking to Gatlinburg by Howard Frank Mosher... What IndieBound says, A stunning and lyrical Civil War thriller, Walking to Gatlinburg is a spellbinding story of survival, wilderness adventure, mystery, and love in the time of war... Morgan Kinneson is both hunter and hunted. The sharp-shooting 17-year-old from Kingdom County, Vermont, is determined to track down his brother Pilgrim, a doctor who has gone missing from the Union Army. But first Morgan must elude a group of murderous escaped convicts in pursuit of a mysterious stone that has fallen into his possession... It’s 1864, and the country is in the grip of the bloodiest war in American history. Meanwhile, the Kinneson family has been quietly conducting passengers on the Underground Railroad from Vermont to the Canadian border. One snowy afternoon Morgan leaves an elderly fugitive named Jesse Moses in a mountainside cabin for a few hours so that he can track a moose to feed his family. In his absence, Jesse is murdered, and thus begins Morgan’s unforgettable trek south through an apocalyptic landscape of war and mayhem... Along the way, Morgan encounters a fantastical array of characters, including a weeping elephant, a pacifist gunsmith, a woman who lives in a tree, a blind cobbler, and a beautiful and intriguing slave girl named Slidell who is the key to unlocking the mystery of the secret stone... Howard Frank Mosher has written 10 novels, including Walking to Gatlinburg. He's been compared to a modern day Mark Twain for his wonderful storytelling and this book has received an amazing amount of positive buzz! As part of his book tour for Walking to Gatlinburg he presents a unique slide show. “Transforming History into Fiction: the Story of a Born Liar”, which chronicles how he wrote Walking to Gatlinburg, from the surpassingly strange, never-before-told family stories that inspired the novel. Well, it just so happens that he is making a stop on his book tour a few towns over from where I live! So today I am going to the Ridgefield Library to listen to Mr. Mosher talk about his newest book! And I'm really looking forward to his slide show! I'll be picking up his book to read, so stay tuned for a review! You can read the first chapter of Walking to Gatlinburg by following the link to Howard Frank Mosher's website. You can also read all about his other books, and see if he'll be visiting a bookstore or library near you! *P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!

The Last Child by John Hart... Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he’d been taught since birth to trust. No one else believes that Alyssa is still alive, but Johnny is certain that she is—-confident in a way that he can never fully explain... Determined to find his sister, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown. It is a desperate, terrifying search, but Johnny is not as alone as he might think. Detective Clyde Hunt has never stopped looking for Alyssa either, and he has a soft spot for Johnny. He watches over the boy and tries to keep him safe, but when Johnny uncovers a dangerous lead and vows to follow it, Hunt has no choice but to intervene. John Hart writes mysteries/thrillers, and The Last Child won The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger in 2009! I've got a copy of this on my nightstand too! John Hart's character Johnny has been called a modern Huck Finn... *P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!

The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell... January 2006. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjövallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene... Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: Her grandparents, the Andréns, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andrén family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the nineteenth-century diary of an Andrén ancestor—a gang master on the American transcontinental railway—that describes brutal treatment of Chinese slave workers. The police insist that only a lunatic could have committed the Hesjövallen murders, but Birgitta is determined to uncover what she now suspects is a more complicated truth... The investigation leads to the highest echelons of power in present-day Beijing, and to Zimbabwe and Mozambique. But the narrative also takes us back 150 years into the depths of the slave trade between China and the United States—a history that will ensnare Birgitta as she draws ever closer to solving the Hesjövallen murders. We've met quite a few wonderful mystery writers from Sweden since Steig Larsson gave us The Girl with The Dragon Tatoo, and Henning Mankell is among them. The Man from Bejing is a March 2010 Indie Bookseller (Independent Bookseller) pick! (Ok, no references to Twain, Huck Finn or even Becky here) *P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!

Hope you've found something to peak your interest! Next week be on the lookout for a review of The Favorites by Mary Yukari Waters, which I finished this week. It was a wonderful book about "three generations of women and a secret that binds them together". Mary Yukari Waters paints a beautiful picture of the complex relationships between women, all of which happens in a small village in Japan. And I'll be reviewing Sugar by Bernice L. McFadden which I had talked about in my Feb. 28th Sunday Salon post, which is a wonderful story of loss, friendship and redemption with the backdrop of the deep south.

Happy reading... Suzanne