Review: Death of the Demon by Anne Holt

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  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Scribner; Reprint edition (June 18, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 1451634803
  • Source: Publisher

Twelve-year-old Olav is the newest ward in a foster home outside of Oslo. It isn’t long before the staff realizes something isn’t quite right with Olav, the sheer hatred that shines in his eyes is quite evident. Removed from his mother’s care, Olav makes it apparent that he isn’t pleased with his new home, shouting curses and threats to the staff.

When the director of the foster home, Agnes Vestavik, is found dead at her desk, a kitchen knife plunged through her back and into her heart, Olav becomes the most obvious suspect. Yet he has disappeared from the walls of the foster home, roaming the streets of Oslo alone.

Hanne Wilhelmsen, recently promoted to chief inspector of the Oslo police, is assigned to the case. Working along detective Billy T., Hanne begins to not only investigate the murder but the disappearance of Olav as well. Immediately, she orders an investigation of the foster home and its staff.  Headstrong and independent, Hanne has a difficult time delegating her work and sharing her findings with others assigned to the case.  Her inability to trust others is not only a hindrance at the workplace but at home as well.   When the evidence begins mounting up, suggesting that one of the staff at the foster home is responsible for the director’s death, Hanne can’t shake the feeling that young Olav is somehow responsible. The investigation unveils a wealth of corruption within the fost home, including sordid affairs, fraud and larceny, just to name a few.

Meanwhile, Olav roams the streets alone, struggling to get back home to the mother. As the reader follows the investigation and Olav’s trek, his mother shares insight into his past and the mental illness that causes him to act with such malice and hatred. Starting at his birth, she knew something was wrong with her son.  It took her months to form any sort of bond with him, only when he was bordering on life and death did she have any feeling of love or nurturing toward him. Olav’s inappropriate behavior and poor social skills started when he was quite young, before entering school. This added detail about Olav’s character has the reader guessing, alongside Hanne, if this young boy is evil enough to have committed this horrendous crime.

While this is the third book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series, Death of the Demon is well-suited as a stand-alone novel. Holt does a tremendous job of building up the characters, providing back-story as necessary. Her ability to build up and define each of the characters is so skilled that readers will find the most evil of characters sympathetic.

Holt’s critique and examination of the foster care system is quite enlightening. While she details a wide range of issues and faults with the foster home’s staff, she diminishes it by also noting the sheer amount of love and fondness they have for those in their care. The question remains, however: how much of what happens to those in the governments care can be blamed on inadequacies in the system and not on the individuals themselves?

What I found most remarkable about this novel was the twists and turns Holt takes her reader on, keeping one guessing until quite literally the last several pages of the book. While I can typically deduce the identity of the guilty party early on in a thriller, I found myself grasping at straw with this one. When all is revealed, I still found myself exclaiming “I KNEW IT” even though in fact I did not.

I have a feeling many may have issues with the ending but it is my opinion that it is one of the few plausible ways Holt could have conveyed the truth, without making it obviously apparent. It is Holt’s intent to keep her reader’s guessing, never trusting what is portrayed as the truth, even after the final pages have been turned.

Anne Holt is an Edgar Award nominated author and this novel just adds validity and proof of her sheer talent and skill. While her work is often compared to other Norwegian crime fiction greats, Holt can easily stand on her own as the queen of this subsection of crime fiction. Highly, highly recommended!

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Guest Post & Giveaway: Ania Szado, Author of Studio Saint-Ex

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of reviewing Studio Saint-Ex by Ania Szado, an eloquent historical fiction set in 1940s New York City.  Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Ania for a guest post in which she writes about inspiring coincidences behind the writing of her novel. 

Photo credit: Joyce Ravid

Photo credit: Joyce Ravid

Writing a novel can be exhilarating but also excruciating. It can seem, at times, as though forces beyond our conscious control are taking the reins or holding us back. No wonder we grasp for any indication that we’re on the right road. All the better if the signs are so odd and unexpected that they can’t be rationalized away.

I experience eerie and helpful coincidences as I worked on Studio Saint-Ex, a novel in which Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is writing The Little Prince in WWII Manhattan while navigating the devotion and ambitions of his fiery estranged wife and a beautiful young designer, Mignonne.

One delightful head-shaker relates to setting. I invented an elegant social club for WWII Manhattan’s French expats, including Saint-Exupéry. I put my “Alliance Française” where the Cartier store stands, across from the East 52nd Street studio where Saint-Ex worked on The Little Prince. Only later did a source check the real Alliance Française’s archives—and found that the membership had indeed borrowed space to gather in that exact location at that very time.

One stroke of luck had to do with character development. I struggled to get a handle on Mignonne’s vision and attitude as she grapples to become a star of New York’s fledgling fashion design scene. Then, midway through my least-organized research trip ever, I stumbled across a show at the Museum of the City of New York: the first exhibition to trace the forgotten legend of Valentina, a celebrity designer who brought sensuality and boldness to the fashion attitudes of WWII New York. Suddenly, I understood Mignonne’s ambitions for her career and her creativity. I spent the afternoon in the exhibit hall with tears of gratitude rising to my lashes.

The final incident makes me ponder the mystery of how characters speak to writers. Saint-Exupéry disappeared in flight in 1944. For half a century, no one knew what had become of his body or his plane. Then a fisherman in the Mediterranean caught the author’s identity bracelet in his nets. It was as though Saint-Exupéry had decided that the time had come to be found. It gave me hope that he would approve of my shining a light on his work through my own.

That seems to be the message of coincidences. They prod us to keep going. They promise that—out of the blue, if we do our part—the path and inspiration will appear.

 

Life’s little coincidences are quite moving, aren’t they?

Thanks to the publisher, I have one copy of Studio Saint-Ex for giveaway. This contest is open to US and Canadian residents only. To enter, please fill out the form below. The winner will be notified on Friday, June 28th.

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Review: Studio Saint-Ex by Ania Szado

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  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Knopf (June 4, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 0307962792
  • Source: Publisher

Paris is currently occupied by the Germans. New York’s Mayor La Guardia believes he can make the city the new fashion capital of the world. Mignonne Lachapelle is a twenty-two year old woman, headstrong and eager to make herself known in the world of fashion design. Her designs are unique and border on risque. After her instructor and mentor pass some of her Mignonne’s design’s off as her own, Mignonne immediately seeks retribution and ends up working as her mentor’s assistant. It is here that she is reunited with French expatriate writer/war pilot, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a man whom she tutored in the English language a year previous.

Mignonne’s quest to make a name for herself becomes a bit more complicated with this reunion, particularly when Antoine’s wife, Consuelo, becomes one of her customers. Despite flaunting her many affairs before her husband’s eyes, Consuelo is quite desperate to win back the love and attention of Antoine. The three become consumed in the most complicated of love triangles, particularly when Consuelo enlists Mignonne in her attempts to win back her husband. Antoine is emotionally needy and vulnerable, reaching for Mignonne’s adoration to aid him as he writes his novel about a young prince, lost and exiled on earth after falling during his journey through the planets. In turn, Mignonne turns Antoine’s novel, The Little Prince, into a fashion show, all in a vain attempt to prevent Antoine from leaving her and enlisting in the war.

Szado’s Studio Saint-Ex captures so eloquently the tumultuous New York of the 1940s. The country, and the world, was embarking on a completely new manner of life, war with Germany looming. Despite the chaos that is looming, the reader becomes instantly immersed in setting of New York, just as the city’s introduction and fame in the fashion world is about to take off.  Having visited the city several times myself, I can visualize the city as it is now, yet also transported to a time when the Garment District was overrun with designers, vendors and the like.

The characters Szado creates are incredibly detailed and well-portrayed. Each are completely flawed yet it is difficult not to sympathize with each and every one of them. Mignonne is desperate to make a name for herself as a fashion designer. Her passion was so real and vivid that it comes alive on the pages. After being betrayed by her mentor, her determination only grows stronger, only lessening when yet another more tangible passion presents itself. Antoine’s own desperation and loneliness comes alive in his writing. He feels abandoned and lost in a country that is not his own, his potential also diminished as long as he’s prevented from living a life he so desperately needs to lead. And Consuelo…so vain yet also so needy of her husband’s love.

A fan of Saint-Exupéry’s children’s classic The Little Prince from childhood, I found it incredibly rewarding to read about his life as he wrote it, even if it is a fictionalized account.  Add that to the rich historical account of a blossoming fashion capital and it all adds up to a incredibly captivating, wholly remarkable and well-rounded novel. Even those not familiar with the brilliant work of Saint-Exupéry’s will be rewarded with an incredibly enriching experience. Highly, highly recommended.

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Frightful Friday: Joyland by Stephen King

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Frightful Friday is a weekly meme in which I feature a particularly scary or chilling book that I’ve read that week.

This week’s featured title is Joyland by Stephen King:

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Hard Case Crime; First Edition edition (June 4, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 1781162646
  • Source: Personal copy

Devin Jones is a college student who recently had his heart broken. Attempting to escape his routine everyday life he applies for a job at Joyland, a little theme park that has avoided the commercialism of bigger parks like Disney.  He quickly picks up on the theme park way of life and becomes a jack-of-all trades, one minute running rides, the next donning “the fur” of the park’s mascot.

He isn’t at the park long before he hears rumors it is haunted by a young girl who was killed while in Joyland’s Horror House, her boyfriend slitting her throat and disposing of her body before the ride ended. Staff and guests alike have reportedly seen her ghost. Devin, having worked the theme park for a little while now, wonders why he hasn’t seen her.  Trying to get his mind off his lost love, Devin quickly becomes obsessed with learning more about her death, soon revealing that she was just one of many killed by this brutal serial killer.

Fans expecting Joyland to be classic King horror will be disappointed to learn that it is not;  it is much more. Instead, it combines a multitude of genres, including thriller, supernatural with a touch of horror. It’s a coming of age story set in the 1970s our country was going through a host of really difficult things, including the war in Vietnam and the rise of sexual freedom and feminism.  King, as he is known to do, brilliantly showcases and studies what is going on in the world by using this young man, this theme park, and a series of killings as vehicles of his message.

The characters King devises are rich and colorful, much like Joyland itself.  King mixes loners who have devoted their lives to working the theme park with a young mother and her dying son who has a special power. Only in a King novel will these things flow together so naturally and without flaws.

The best thing about this novel? While it isn’t the horror-filled King that many of us have grown to love, the fact that this level of terror is missing allows a whole new audience of readers, perhaps too turned off by horror, to embrace and discover King’s writing. Reminiscent of King’s Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption,  and The Green Mile, Joyland demonstrates once again just how gifted King is when it comes to crafting a truly brilliant and moving novel. Highly, highly recommended.

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Review: The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth Silver

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  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Crown (June 11, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 038534743X
  • Source: Publisher

Ten years ago, accused of first-degree murder, Noa P. Singleton not once spoke up in her own defense. Now, just six months away from her execution date, Noa is visited by Marlene Dixon, a powerful Philadelphia lawyer and the mother of the young woman Noa was convicted of killing.  Marlene’s view of the death penalty has changed; she is now willing to work to commute Noa’s sentence to life in prison if Noa will do just one thing: share what happened that fateful day.

Up until this point, Noa has refused to share her story. She shares a secret with Marlene, one that ties them both to the murder. Noa feels that Marlene doesn’t deserve the salvation and closure that she so desperately demands.

The author leads the reader through the past revealing Noa’s tumultuous life, raised by her selfish, self-absorbed mother. It isn’t until she’s an adult that Noa ever meets her father.  As the pages turn and the reader learns more about Noa’s life, she develops into quite the sympathetic character. Surprisingly sane despite spending the last decade in prison, the extent of Noa’s intense desire to take the blame for this young woman’s death is truly heartbreaking.

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton is an intense psychological thriller filled to the brim with twists and turns. While the reader knows immediately that Noa is imprisoned, it isn’t until much later in the novel that the crime she is convicted for is revealed.  Learning of Noa’s less than healthy upbringing, readers will want to sympathize with her, but since she is a convicted killer I found myself struggling with who to trust. Both Noa, given her crime, and Marlene, given her emotional connection to the crime, are incredibly unreliable characters.  Through Noa’s flashbacks and Marlene’s letters to her dead daughter, we are slowly given access to the motivations and feelings exhibited by each of these characters. The parallel narratives battle with one another, challenging the reader to come to his/her determination about the culpability and believability of each of the characters.

Silver’s knowledge of the justice system is quite profound. She has her own way of criticizing our current system, particularly on the side of the defendant. Noa had no one to speak up for her when she refused to do it herself, no one to examine the procedures and practices enforced both before and during her trial. Had someone been her advocate, done a little digging around into the crime itself, it is quite possible she wouldn’t be preparing for her own execution.

I found it quite shocking to read that this is Silver’s first novel. Her talent at teasing the reader, revealing information bit by bit and thereby increasing the intensity page by page, seems like it would come from a veteran writer. This skill, and the fact that I was kept guessing up until the very end, has me applauding for this author’s skilled talent.

A completely captivating, intellectually stimulating psychological thriller, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton is the perfect evidence to indicate that this is an author to watch. Highly, highly recommended!

About the author:

Silver, a writer, attorney, and former English teacher, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the MA Program in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in England, and Temple University Beasley School of Law. She studied capital punishment with some of the nation’s leading anti-death penalty attorneys at the University of Texas School of Law at Austin, where she worked on a clemency petition, and later worked as a Judicial Clerk for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. As part of the clemency investigation, she visited death row, interviewed inmates and met with victim family members. While exploring the provocative and polarizing issues of the death penalty, Silver wanted to present both sides of the issue, and thus her novel was born. Silver’s taut writing, which has brought recognition from Glimmer Train, funding from the NEA, and writing residencies in Spain and France, carries the reader forward to the story’s shocking end.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing me the opportunity to participate in this tour. Please be sure to check out the other stops in this tour; I guarantee this book will have people talking!

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Review: The Registry by Shannon Stoker

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  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Original edition (June 11, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 0062271725
  • Source: Publisher

Years ago, The Registry saved the country from potential collapse. Girls are groomed to be perfect wives and are sold for the highest bid to their potential husbands. Mia Morrissey is about to turn eighteen years old and eligible to be registered. Her childhood was spent preparing for this very moment yet when she receives a warning from her sister who was recently married, her dreams of a fairytale future are destroyed.

Essentially, women are treated as property. They are not allowed to have their own opinions, speak unless spoken to, and must clear every action with their husbands. They are not formally educated, other than instruction on how to sew and cook for their husbands. Marriage is no longer based on love, instead focusing on what the young girl, a piece of property, can give to her husband.

When a husband is found for Mia, she suddenly decides that the life that has been arranged for her is less than ideal and she runs, taking her friend Whitney. Whitney has only a month left on the registry before she’s turned over to the government, living the life of a slave for its bidding. The two enlist (blackmail) Andrew, one of Mia’s father’s farmhands, to aid in their escape. Andrew just has a few weeks left before his mandatory four-year enlistment in the military and he intended to travel around the country, taking advantage of his last days of freedom.

Running from The Registry is rare and deadly, to both the potential wife and any accomplices. Mia’s husband, Grant, will stop at nothing to get Mia back, even if it means killing anyone who stands in his way. While the trio attempts to escape to Mexico where the registry doesn’t exist, Grant uses his influence to track down Mia, leaving several dead in his wake.

While I was intrigued about the premise of The Registry, I couldn’t get over a number of issues that tainted my opinion of this book. No one seems to know much about the origin of The Registry, other than it has been in existence for nearly a century. What was once the United States is now broken up into regions. Young girls are led to believe there is nothing beyond the area in which they reside, not realizing there is an entire world free of The Registry.  Granted, the life that we lead presently is so far from this dystopian world, yet I found it hard to comprehend how and why a nation would continue to practice such archaic beliefs.

Additionally, I found the main character, Mia, uninteresting and frankly quite annoying. She quickly alternates between a strong and independent young woman and a whiney teen who seems to lack in common sense. I felt no connection with her and only found myself rooting for her because I strongly detested the future she was destined to fulfill.

And then there was a love-triangle. That, too, was cheesy, over the top, and immature.  This title definitely leans a little bit more toward the young adult than I thought it would and this could potentially be why I was able to connect or have any vested interest in the characters and storyline.

The Registry is the first in a planned series, the second book due out in Winter 2014. While I can’t say I won’t read it (for I am truly interested in learning more about the origins of The Registry) I won’t rush out to buy it on release day.

I received a copy of this book as part of my participation in a tour with TLC Book Tours.  Check out the other stops in the tour…perhaps others will have a better opinion of this title.

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Celebrating June is Audiobook Month! Going Public…In Shorts with Dick Hill

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June is audiobook month! This year, I’m participating in something really exciting: Going Public…In Shorts, a serialized audio story production!

Spoken Freely, a group of 30+ professional narrators, has teamed with Going Public to celebrate June is Audiobook Month (JIAM) 2013 by offering a serialized audio story collection: Going Public…in Shorts. Each narrator has recorded a short piece from the public domain, including the work of Chekhov, Twain, Chopin, Poe, Lovecraft, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Wilde and many others, even Lincoln’s pivotal Second Inaugural Address. All proceeds will go to the Reach Out and Read literacy advocacy organization.

Throughout June, 1-2 stories will be released online each day via Going Public, as well as on various author and book blogs. Each participating narrator will be hosted by a different blog. As a “Thank you!” to listeners, stories will be available to listen to for free, for one week (online only – no downloads).

 

You can imagine my excitement upon signing up to join in on this fantastic project.  This excitement only grew when I discovered one of my favorite narrators, Dick Hill, had signed on as well. Partnering with Dick has been a true honor.  He narrates Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series, one of the very best thriller series out there.

Rather than interviewing Dick, I asked him instead to contribute a guest post about what he does, as a narrator, to get into the role of the character he is narrating. Without further ado, I give you Dick Hill!!

Photo credit: audiobookstand.com

The truth is, Jenn, not a helluva’ lot.  I’m a fly by the seat of your pants kinda’ guy.  Always have been.  I delight in doing cold reads, and with my wife Susie Breck engineering and directing, I’m able to do those safely.  Susie has won a number of awards, among them an AUDIE, for her own work recording books, and I trust her to keep me from going too far astray.  She preps our books, makes character notes that she gives me to work from.  Age, personality traits, education, accents, etc.   Unless we’re doing a military thriller, I don’t look at the script before recording.  With military books, I’ll skim through, marking dialogue to i.d. characters (often these books have groups of characters engaged in dialogue, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, POTUS, and a dozen others sitting around some table discussing some crisis)  Military jargon is something I’m more familiar with than she is.  

A typical book however, would have Susie handing me one or more lined yellow pages, listing main and secondary characters, with notes about their appearance or general attitude, etc.  I work with that info as a guide, assigning voices as we proceed.  Having read the book, Susie can keep me out of trouble if I choose a voice and approach that will get me in trouble.  Giving someone a nasal tenor voice when on page three hundred umpty seven it’s revealed that he was a rumbly bass, who sounds as if he gargles with ground glass.  That sorta’ thing.

With a character like Jack Reacher, we’ve been together so many times that it is very comfortable and natural to assume the role, but then it was an easy fit from the start, thanks to Lee’s writing.  I think the brunt of the work is done by the author.  Someone as skilled as Lee Child does a terrific job laying out specifics of behavior and persona for his main character.  He also has a very definite rhythm to Reacher’s dialogue that’s remained consistent through the entire series.  All I do is read, tell the story, the best way I can.  I can’t really explain how I arrive at all the decisions I make beyond that.  In fact, I don’t really want to examine my process, if indeed I even have one.  I’ve been getting away with it for a long time, and I don’t want to rock the boat by intellectualizing whatever it is that happens.  

Supporting characters are handled pretty much the same way.  Sometimes a person I know, or a character I’ve seen portrayed onstage or on t.v. or in a movie, will come to mind to guide my choices.  Then I don’t try to exactly mimic that character, but I’ll do my impression of my memory.  It may not seem or sound anything like the character that inspired my take, but in keeping that imagined performance in mind, my offering will at least have a measure of consistency.  (e.g., any book with a sub commander may feature my imagined version as played by Fred Thompson.  More attitude than vocal impression, though there’s a nod to his patterns and inflections.  Similarly, officious martinets may have me keeping in mind William Daniels, and wise, solid, salt of the earth characters will reflect my late father-in-law. ) 

I can’t speak to anyone else’s process, (hard enough to speak to my own) but I think most narrators prefer to work with the script more than I do, reading and perhaps studying it before stepping into the booth.  I love the challenge of cold reads, and perhaps there’s something gained by the sense of immediacy and discovery the approach engenders.  Then again, maybe not.  As I stated above, I try not to examine my process too closely.  I’ve gotten away with what I do for a good long while, and I hope to continue doing so.  I also hope I’ve given some kind of glimpse into how it comes about for me.  Hope it makes sense to you.  I think I’ve laid out, as best I could, the way it comes together.  Then again, I may be fulla’ shit.  Often am.

Learn more about Dick Hill and his contribution to Going Public…In Shorts! Finally, click below to listen to Dick’s contribution to the project: narration of Mark Twain’s Two Illuminating Stories: The Story of The Bad Little Boy, and The Story of the Good Little Boy

Two Illuminating Stories from Mark Twain (read by Dick Hill) by Going Public Project

Be sure to check out Paul Michael Garcia’s visit today at SFFAudio! Also, in case you missed it, Gabrielle de Cuir visited Teresa’s Reading Corner yesterday! Tomorrow, check out Devourer of Books for a new short!

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BEA Bloggers Conference Panel Recap: Taking Your Online Presence Offline

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BEABloggers_rgb_smThis time last week, I was in New York heading over to the Javits Convention Center for BEA’s Blogger Conference. My role this year, like the past few years, was a panelist in one of the many general sessions.  Specifically, I was one of three panelists tasked to discuss how bloggers can take their online presence offline.

Going in to the panel, I was told I would have ten minutes to speak on my topic and once all the panelists spoke we would open it up for questions from the audience. I was actually worried I wasn’t going to have enough to talk about. Imagine that!? Instead, it was quite the opposite and I had so much more information I wanted to relay, hence this post.

To start off, I’ll give you a brief summary of what the other panelists spoke about.  Tirzah Price (The Compulsive Reader) was the only other blogger on the panel and she spoke about how blogging helped her get a job at Great Lakes Book & Supply in Big Rapids, MI. Moreso, she is incredibly involved in the community, providing creative writing courses to the public. Additionally, she created a Facebook page for Michigan Reader Events.  Pretty awesome, right?

The third panelist was Wanda Jewell, the Executive Director of SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance). She spoke about how bloggers can best work with their local independent bookstores. To start out, the best thing bloggers can do if they have an indie nearby is to introduce themselves, become a customer of the store, attend events, and build up the relationship from there.

Agreeably, this panel did lean a bit toward support of independent bookstores and that appeared to be a bit off-putting to some attendees. I understand that not all bloggers are fortunate enough to have indies close to them. I didn’t have one myself until two years ago, so I get that. So, when I noticed the looks on the faces of attendees, I did expound upon some of the “offline” things I do beyond working with indie bookstores and how easy it is for bloggers to get involved.

Reluctant Readers After School Book Club

First, I created a reluctant readers after school book club at the local middle school and elementary school. The children who participated in these clubs were hand-selected by the teachers and parental permission was required. Additionally, since a lot of time and resources were put into these clubs, parents had to guarantee that their children would participate in these monthly book clubs.

The first year of this club has just recently concluded. Each club had 10-12 children “assigned” to it. Midway through the year, a large portion of the children technically “outgrew” the program, meaning they had overcome their reluctance in reading and were full-fledged book lovers! Obviously, I couldn’t kick them out of the club so we continued as a regular book club.

To select books, I asked my oldest son (the formerly and sometimes reoccurring reluctant reader) to pick a few books that interested him. If the book was out already, the school librarian procured enough copies for each of the children. If the book hadn’t been published yet (this only happened 1-2 times) I contacted the publishers who very willingly supplied the books to the children.

Additionally, each month we would have a big book giveaway. My son and I would pull together books we’ve received from publishers that we’ve read as well as some we hadn’t yet read and hand them out to the kids. I have to say, this was the one thing the kids looked forward to the most! Many of these children don’t have access to books outside of the school library. It was heartwarming to see these children, former reluctant readers, digging through the boxes of books looking for treasure. By far this is the most rewarding “offline” project I am a part of!

How to get started: Contact/introduce yourself you your local school principal or librarian. If you have a child attending that school, you have an easy in!

Hosting a Book Club

I host the fiction book club at my local independent bookstore, One More Page. This is a great opportunity for book bloggers! First, you have access and knowledge about really great books months before publication. In many cases, by the time the books are out you have read them and moderating a book club gives you another excuse to talk about books with fellow book lovers!

Like the middle school & elementary book clubs, I bring bags of books to this book club to hand out. They include ARCs I have read and reviewed and I’m ready to pass on as well as unsolicited books that I do not plan on reading and reviewing. It’s a win-win for all. You clear out all the stacks of books overtaking your homes and book club members get early access to books!

My blogging has really helped out with this book club because it gives me the sort of access to authors that the everyday reader does not have. For example, I use contact information for publicists and can get in touch with them about arranging a visit with the author or, if that isn’t an option, a phone call from the author.  Last night I hosted the June meeting of our book club and we had the opportunity to chat with Nichole Bernier about her book, The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.  Book club members tend to like these meetings the best: in addition to chatting about the book we get the unique opportunity to talk to the author about the book, asking questions about their motivation and inspiration. A real treat!

How to get started: Contact your local bookstore, library, etc. See if they have an existing book club.  If they do, offer to host every once in a while. If not, suggest that they start one! Specialized book clubs (non-fiction, mystery, spiritual, children’s) are great options as well!

Library Support

The final “offline” project I work on is providing support to my local library. Library budgets have been cut severely and unfortunately they don’t have the level of staff and support they once had. Mine in particular doesn’t have the resources to do a lot of the work involved in running the library book club, so I pitch in. I help pick the book, provide resources and discussion questions about the book (if not available by the publisher) and pretty much do everything but run the book club.  This typically takes me a few hours a month and really lessons the weight and pressure on the librarians to keep running programs with limited resources.

How to get started: Introduce yourself to your local library! Volunteer your time in other ways (offer to shelve books, etc.) and build up a relationship from there.

Reading to Under-privileged children

My county has a literacy council. One of the volunteer opportunities is a program in which trained volunteers read bedtime stories to children in shelters. This one takes a great deal of commitment but by far is quite rewarding!

In addition to these “offline” opportunities, I also mentioned a few online opportunities I’ve gained access to since becoming a blogger. To keep it short, these include several freelance writing opportunities and participation as one of the founding members (and community outreach director) for Bloggers Recommend!

If you have any questions about any of these programs and/or would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact me either via the comments below by emailing me (jennsbookshelfATgmail.com).

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Review: A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams

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  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Putnam Adult (May 30, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 039916216X
  • Source: Publisher

It’s Memorial Day weekend in 1938. Following family tradition, Lily Dane has left her life in New York and returned with her family to the oceanfront community of Seaview, Rhode Island. Her plans for a peaceful, relaxing summer are changed when the Greenwalds return to Seaview. A painful past full of heartbreaking events comes rushing back to Lily.

Nick and Budgie Greenwald once played a big role in Lily’s life. Budgie was Lily’s best friend; they grew up together sharing many fond memories of Seaview. Nick was once Lily’s fiance, their relationship destroyed seven years ago. Nick and Budgie have recently married, an event that raised quite a few eyebrows and stirred up the gossip in Seaview.

Budgie has returned to Seaview in the hopes of reconstructing her family’s old house…and her relationship with Lily as well. Always one to be the center of the social scene, Budgie takes it upon herself to try to set Lily up with Yankees pitcher Graham Pendleton, a “friend” of hers from their college days. Despite this, Lily’s love for Nick cannot be diminished and despite Budgie’s attempts to push her on Graham, Lily can’t stop thinking about Nick. The two are forced to revisit the events that pushed them apart, facing the emotional devastation that ended their relationship. Both are bound by intense emotional obligations, yet when the true circumstances are revealed, both see one another in a completely new light. A a horrific hurricane looms, Lily and Nick must face and overcome their own emotional storms, changing their lives forever.

The setting of this novel plays quite the integral role in this story. A calm, serene beach in the path of a looming hurricane. It’s not hard to draw the connection between what is happening in the setting to that of Nick and Lily’s relationship. This setting is also what will draw readers to embrace this novel. Who can resist a warm beach in the summer, warm sand under your toes?

While I’m typically turned off by love stories in general, the feeling I had after reading Williams’ previous title, Overseas, allowed me to take a chance and dive into this novel.  As I suspected, I was quickly wrapped up, nearly obsessed, with Nick and Lily’s love. Perhaps because it is a love that is true and classic, one that has succeeded in standing the test of time. Using chapters with alternating time periods, Williams so eloquently builds up each of the characters, detailing their transformation and emotional evolution over the past several years.

The characters are extremely rich in this novel. Williams is quite successful at balancing Budgie’s outrageous and obnoxious behavior with the serenity, calm and innocence found in Lily.  How the two could have been friends for so long is beyond me! And the love triangle/square!? Wowser. It was quite intense, I found myself furiously turning the pages to find out what was going to happen.  And the passion? Well, you’ll see for yourself.

My only complaint would be the ending.  I’m ecstatic about what transpired but thought it was an easy means to get to the desired ending. That said, the rich beauty and beautiful writing throughout the novel, the truly dynamic and captivating storyline, really won me over in the end.  If you are looking for a beautiful, rich novel to take you away this summer, this is the title for you. Highly, highly recommended.

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A Month in Review: May 2013

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Whew, I’m still recovering from BEA but just had to post about the books I read in May. What a whirlwind of a month!
Books Reviewed

Total books reviewed: 17

Pick of the month: You all know I can never pick just one, right? This month, I’m limiting it to my top three favorite books. Each of these books really stand out as truly outstanding reads:

 

How was your reading month? What were some of your favorite reads?

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