The Sunday Salon..."Books with Buzz"

It's Sunday! Welcome to The Sunday Salon! Pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of joe and relax! The Sunday Salon is where hundreds of bloggers gather together virtually to chat about all the bookish things that happened this week.

One of the exciting things to happen this week in the "eReader world" was the price war between Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders. It started with Barnes & Noble lowering the price of The Nook (with Wi-Fi & 3G) to $199 from the original $259. Amazon almost immediately lowered the price of the Kindle to $189, which was originally $249. Sony then dropped their Sony Touch eReader to $199, down from $250 and then Borders jumped in by not lowering their price on the Kobo, but giving a $20 gift card along with doubling the Borders Bucks for any new Kobo purchased. You can read all about it in my June 22nd post, and I've also included links to all the eReaders mentioned. So, if you were thinking about an eReader, now seems the time to buy one!

Karin Slaughter fans were happy this week as her new book, Broken, was released. Bringing back her characters from Undone, Karin weaves mystery

& suspense together with murder to give us another thriller based in Georgia. Last August I read & reviewed Undone and really enjoyed it! It was the first Karin Slaughter book I had read and I am looking forward to reading more! Like to read this on your Kindle? This book is Kindle Ready! Janet Evanovich fans were happy too, as her 16th Stephanie Plum novel, Sizzling Sixteen, came out this week! If you are unfamiliar with the Stephanie Plum novels, they're kind of like chick-lit noir. Stephanie is a plucky girl working for her cousin Vinny as a bail bondswoman in New Jersey. She's got brains and lots of luck, she's funny and her life is filled with lighthearted adventures... and of course romance. If you want to start at the beginning of this series, One for The Money is it. Her Stephanie Plum novels are numbered "One for the Money", "Two for the Show", etc. For fun Janet Evanovich usually has a contest on her website to name her next book too.

There were a few books that I've had my eye on for a while that were released this week...

The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay by Beverly Jensen... It's a tale of two sisters spanning 70 years as they live and love and travel from Canada to New England. It's gotten wonderful buzz. Unfortunately Beverly Jensen died before it was published. Here's what the publisher writes... In 1916, Idella and Avis Hillock are children living on the edge of a windy bluff in New Brunswick – a hardscrabble world of potato farms and lobster traps, rough men, hard work, and baffling beauty. In The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay, we follow them, along with the ornery men in their lives, through tragedy and comedy, all the way to old age. Relationships between sisters can be difficult, loving, competitive. I look forward to seeing how the relationship between Idella and Avis develope over 70 years! BTW, This book is Kindle Ready!

The Lovers by Vendela Vida... Here's how Indie Bound described The Lovers, "a stunning novel about the love between husbands and wives, mothers and children. Twenty-eight years ago, Peter and Yvonne honeymooned in the beautiful coastal village of DatÇa, Turkey. Now Yvonne is a widow, her twin children grown. Hoping to immerse herself in memories of a happier time—as well as sand and sea—Yvonne returns to DatÇa. But her plans for a restorative week in Turkey are quickly complicated. Instead of comforting her, her memories begin to trouble her. Her vacation rental's landlord and his bold, intriguing wife—who share a curious marital arrangement—become constant uninvited visitors, in and out of the house. Overwhelmed by the past and unexpectedly dislocated by the environment, Yvonne clings to a newfound friendship with Ahmet, a local boy who makes his living as a shell collector. With Ahmet as her guide, Yvonne gains new insight into the lives of her own adult children, and she finally begins to enjoy the shimmering sea and relaxed pace of the Turkish coast. But a devastating accident upends her delicate peace and throws her life into chaos—and her sense of self into turmoil." I thought it would be interesting to see Yvonne's memories of her youth compared with the present as she tried to travel back in time. * BTW, This book is Kindle Ready!

Looking ahead to next week, James Patterson along with Maxine Paetro have a thriller coming out called Private. What's it about?... "Former CIA agent Jack Morgan is already deep into the investigation of a multi-million dollar NFL gambling scandal and the unsolved slayings of 18 schoolgirls when he learns of a horrific murder close to home: his best friend's wife, Jack's former lover, has been killed."

Tess Gerritsen, a favorite thrill writer of mine, has a new book coming out, Ice Cold, starring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli ( I just love her!) and medical examiner Maura Isles... "Boston medical examiner Maura Isles is in Wyoming for a conference. Impulsively, she joins an old friend and his daughter on a ski trip. When their vehicle breaks down, they’re stranded in the eerily named Kingdom Come, a small community whose residents appear to have vanished. Then Maura vanishes. The announcement of her death shocks homicide detective Jane Rizzoli, Maura’s close friend. Investigating Kingdom Come, Rizzoli uncovers dark secrets that may explain Maura’s disappearance." *BTW, Jane & Maura are coming to television! TNT will premier the television series this coming July. It's called Rizzoli & Isles, it will take place in Boston, and the pilot episode will be taken from Tess Gerritsen's book The Apprentice. If you want to start from the beginning with Jane Rizzoli, read The Surgeon first. *BTW, Ice Cold is Kindle Ready! And so are The Surgeon & The Apprentice!

As far as what I'm reading this week... I've got my nose in Into The Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea and am loving it! The story takes place in a small dusty Mexican town where all the men left to go north for work. The women in the village are wonderful, and when banditos threaten to take over the little town, 19 year-old Nayeli along with three of her friends, go in search of help. The writing is wonderful, and Urrea's descriptions of the surroundings is so vivid. *Psst...Look for a review and a GIVEAWAY for this soon!

And it's still June, and that means it's still audiobook month! On my iPod, I'm listening to Stuart Woods' Hot Mahogany, and it is fabulous! It's got that old time detective story feel to it, with Lawyer turned sleuth Stone Barrington, the theft of a piece of antique furniture, women falling for the hero, and a great side kick. Tony Roberts is the narrator and his voice is perfect for this crime noir! I'll be giving you the full scoop when I've finished.

AND, If you haven't yet, there's still a few days left to enter the GIVEAWAY for Knight of Passion by Margaret Mallory! Giveaway ends monday, June 28th at midnight!

What have you been reading?! Listening to any audiobooks lately? Share what books have caught your attention! I'd Love to know what you've found this week! In the meantime, I hope you found something that peaked your interest here!

Happy reading... Suzanne

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

What's Cooking? Lidia Cooks From The Heart of Italy by Lidia Matticchio Basthianich... A Review & Recipe!

Lidia Cooks From The Heart of Italy by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

and Tanya Bastianich Manuali

A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes

A cookbook can be just a list of ingredients and ways to prepare them, or it can be a much richer experience, an exploration of tastes and textures that can make our mouths water. Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, who is well known for her wonderful Italian cooking and sharing that knowledge on her public television show, has a new cookbook! And Lidia's newest cookbook, Lidia Cooks From The Heart of Italy, is the kind of cookbook that is not only a feast for the taste buds, but a feast for the heart as well. Lidia invites us along to explore little-known parts of Italy and the wonderful foods and recipes that come from them. The recipes are divided by the region of Italy they are from, such as Lombardy, Liguria, & Umbria, and Lidia introduces us to each region with the people and flavors that are rooted there. She writes snippets of history, such as how Apples have been a major product of Va id Non since the Middle Ages and how an 1856 nursery list listed 193 apple varieties and now there are over 8000! And at the end of each chapter Lidia gives us further places to explore in the region we are cooking in, such as the wonderfully romantic city of Sirmione in the region of Lombardy, or the antique shops in the Navigli quarter of Milan. Her passion for cooking is infectious, even in the the way she describes the food , " Just a small amount of saffron can imbue extra-virgin olive oil with the spice's captivating perfume and distinctive flavor", the recipes are easy to understand with thorough directions, even down to the recommended equipment to prepare it with, and with 175 recipes there is plenty of great cooking for everyone! Definitely a nice variety of recipes. Everything I have made from Lidia Cooks From The Heart of Italy has been delicious! And with permission from the publisher, Alfred A Knopf, I am able to share one of the recipes from Lidia's new cookbook that was a BIG hit in my house! Baked Penne & Mushrooms! I've also included Lidia's intro to the recipe. Here it is... (along with a couple photos of my cooking)

Baked Penne & Mushrooms (Pasticcio di Penne alla Valdostana) ©Lidia cooks from the Heart of Italy (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009)

The marvelous melting qualities of authentic fontina are particularly evident in baked pasta dishes such as this delicious pasticcio. When it is in the oven with penne (or other tubular or concave pastas, like ziti, rigatoni, or shells), the molten cheese oozes around each peice of pasta and is caught in all of its nooks and crannies. The cheese on top of the pasticcio melts and then becomes crusty and carmelized.

Recommended Equipment: A large pot for cooking the penne; a heavy-bottomed skillet or saute pan, 12 inch diameter or larger; a 3 quart baking dish, 9 x 13 inches, of shallow casserole of similar size.

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

Ingredients...

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt

8 ounces fontina from Valle d’Aosta (or Italian Fontal)

1 cup freshly grated Granda Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano - plus more for passing

4 tablespoons soft butter

1 pound mixed fresh mushrooms - (such as porcini, shiitake, cremini, and common white mushrooms) cleaned and sliced.

1 cup half and half

1 pound penne

1 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley

Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 400 degrees. Fill the pasta pot with 6 quarts of water, add Tablespoon salt, and heat to a boil. Shred the fontina through the larger holes of a hand grater, and toss the shreds with 1/2 cup of the grana (grated parmigiano-reggiano).



Put 3 Tablespoons of the butter in the big skillet, and set it over med.-high heat.

When the butter begins to bubble, drop in the mushroom slices, stir with the butter, season with 1 teaspoon salt, and spread the mushrooms out to cover the pan bottom. Let the mushrooms heat, without stirring, until they release their liquid and it comes to a boil. Cook the mushrooms, stirring occaionally,as they shrivel and the liquid rapidly evaporates. When the skillet bottom is completely dry, sitr the half and half into the mushrooms, and continue stirring as the sauce comes to a boil. Cook it rapidly for a minute or two to thicken slightly, then keep it warm over very low heat.



Meanwhile, stir the penne into the boiling pasta water and cook until barely al dente. Ladle a cup of the pasta cooking water into the mushroom sauce and stir. Drain the pasta briefly, and drop into the cream and mushroom sauce. Toss the penne until all are nicely coated, then sprinkle over them the remaining 1/2 cup of grana (not mixed with fontina) and the chopped parsley. Toss to blend.



Coat the bottom and sides of the baking dish (13 x 9 or 3 quart) with the last tablespoon of butter. Empty the skillet into the dish, spreading the penne and sauce to fill the dish completely in a uniform layer. Smooth the top, sprinkle the mixed fontina-grana evenly all over.



Set the dish in the oven, and bake 20 - 25 minutes, until the cheese topping is crusty and deep golden brown and the sauce is bubbling up at the edges. Set the hot baking dish on a trivet at the table, and serve family-style. ©Lidia cooks from the Heart of Italy (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009)

This is a great cookbook! If you make this recipe, let me know what you think! Learn more about Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, her tv show, recipes and books at Lidia's website Lidia's Italy. In the meantime enjoy her recipe! Thank you to Caitlin of FSB Associates and Alfred A. Knopf for a copy of Lydia Cooks From The Heart of Italy to review!

The Sunday Salon... Books with Buzz, a Bit about Birding, and author happenings in Connecticut

Spring has finally sprung and broken some records here in Connecticut! When average temps are usually in the 50's this time of year, this week we broke 90 degrees!

It was a great week to peak at the garden and see how things look (not too bad), but need to start weeding already (ugh), and maybe check out some new gardening books. My gardening is for the birds... literally. I dug up a small patch of lawn in my backyard and started planting a bird & butterfly garden. It's a long term project, changing as I see what works and what doesn't. A great basic book for learning about bird gardens, with lots of ideas and information, is Attracting Birds to Your Backyard by Sally Roth. And I would love to hear about your gardening ideas too!

For my bookish endeavors this week I've had my head in Ken Wheaton's The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival and the smell of Cajun food practically waifs off the pages! I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this book. Light, funny and original. Check back this week for my review of Ken Wheaton's book! Also coming this week... a review for Bernice McFadden newest book, Glorious. It's filled with Bernice's signature great characters. And a review and giveaway for a copy of Forget Me Not by Vicki Hinze. Forget Me Not is suspense with romance and plot twists that will have you turning those pages! And I've held off a bit so no one would get over iPadded, but I'll post my review this week about the iPad. (just a hint though... I really love it!)

If you are anywhere in Connecticut, there are a few author events... Books on the Common is hosting Pete Nelson whose new book, I Thought You Were Dead, is coming out this week. In a nutshell it's about a down-on-his-luck guy and his faithful dog Stella, who just happens to be able to talk him through his problems. The Date & Time is April 16th @ 7:30pm, and Books on the Common is located in Ridgefield, Ct. The New Canaan Library will be hosting Lisa See, who wrote one of my all time favorite books, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. She'll be talking about Shanghai Girls. The Date & Time is April 14th @ 7:30pm. Reservations are necessary, but you can call the library to make them.

I did manage to pick my head up off the page and check out some interesting books this week... here are some other Books with Buzz...

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli... On a stifling day in 1975, the North Vietnamese army is poised to roll into Saigon. As the fall of the city begins, two lovers make their way through the streets to escape to a new life. Helen Adams, an American photojournalist, must take leave of a war she is addicted to and a devastated country she has come to love. Linh, the Vietnamese man who loves her, must grapple with his own conflicted loyalties of heart and homeland. As they race to leave, they play out a drama of devotion and betrayal that spins them back through twelve war-torn years, beginning in the splendor of Angkor Wat, with their mentor, larger-than-life war correspondent Sam Darrow, once Helen's infuriating love and fiercest competitor, and Linh's secret keeper, boss and truest friend. This has gotten so much great press. I downloaded this book (My first iPad Book) and began reading a bit and all I can say is Tatjana Soli's writing is poetic and the story wrapped itself around me from page one. The images are vivid & haunting. She paints a beautiful picture of war-torn Vietnam and at the same time creates this love story. This is going to be big once more people discover it... *P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready! And priced at $11.99

The Swimming Pool by Holly LeCraw... A heartbreaking affair, an unsolved murder, an explosive romance: welcome to summer on the Cape in this powerful debut... Seven summers ago, Marcella Atkinson fell in love with Cecil McClatchey, a married father of two. But on the same night their romance abruptly ended, Cecil's wife was found murdered—and their lives changed forever. The case was never solved, and Cecil died soon after, an uncharged suspect. Now divorced and estranged from her only daughter, Marcella lives alone, mired in grief and guilt. Meanwhile, Cecil's grown son, Jed, returns to the Cape with his sister for the first time in years. One day he finds a woman's bathing suit buried in a closet—a relic, unbeknownst to him, of his father's affair—and, on a hunch, confronts Marcella. When they fall into an affair of their own, their passion temporarily masks the pain of the past, but also leads to crises and revelations they never could have imagined. This book is sure to be a summer break-out book. Lots of great buzz. Holly writes with such a wonderful easy style, but this is not your typical beach read. This book has got a gripping plot with plenty of suspense. Just published by Doubleday, I have a copy sitting on my nightstand waiting to dive into! And I can't wait! *P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!

Something Missing by Matthew Dicks... From Publishers Weekly, An expert thief unexpectedly finds himself aiding his victims in Dicks's charming if rambling debut. During his hours off, barista Martin Railsback burgles the houses of folks he calls his clients, taking only what they won't notice is missing: for instance, three boxes of long grain rice... two rolls of toilet paper (in Martin's estimation, the Gallos had excellent taste in toilet paper), three cups of olive oil and, on occasion, something really valuable. The system works beautifully until the day Martin drops a client's toothbrush into the toilet and feels compelled to replace it. This act of simple decency sets him on an entirely different course, and pretty soon he's breaking into houses to improve the lives of their occupants. A fun light-hearted read, it's gotten great reviews so far. I have a friend (Steve) who is really enjoying it! (He offered, but I let him take the last copy at the bookstore). I think the premise is great, and I look forward to cracking the spine on this one. *P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready! At a "bargain" price of $9.99.

What are you reading this week!? Share some of your books and let us all know! Have you tried out the iPad? And what do you think about eBook pricing? In the meantime, have a great week!

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