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Sunday, March 31, 2013

Mailbox Monday (4/1/13)


Welcome back to MariReads, Mailbox Monday-ers!

It has been quite awhile since I last hosted the Mailbox Monday Blog Tour. Two years ago, I believe. I had a great time hosting then, and am excited to be doing it again for all of you this month.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the meme, here is what it is all about:

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. It was started by Marcia, previously of The Printed Page and is now a Blog Tour, hosted by a different book blog each month.
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This week's books for me were fiber related. Yay! I love pattern books with beautiful photos of knitted/crocheted items. I am excited to cast on a new project from both of these books:

More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson (NetGalley)

Crochet One-Skein Wonders by (NetGalley)
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So, what did you get this past week? Enquiring minds would like to know.

Happy Reading!
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 FTC Disclosure: Clicking on book title and/or image links will lead you to my Amazon Affiliate page.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Review: More Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson

I have had Joelle Hoverson's previous book Last Minute Knitted Gifts for quite awhile and have used many of the patterns to make gifts for friends and family. I was excited to get a chance to check out More Last Minute Knitted Gifts through NetGalley. After taking a look through it, I know I will be purchasing the book to add to my knitting pattern book collection.

It is filled with beautiful photos of brightly colored knits in yarns that I am sure are soft to the touch. There are many patterns I am aching to get started on including that Pointy Elf Hat from the cover. My daughter so needs one of those for our next trip to Tahoe. There are also some great fingerless gloves, sweaters and blankies all perfect for the many babies on the way. I know a lot of pregnant ladies right now. :)
First to get on the needles, though, is the Entrelac Baby Blanket in grey, yellow and white for my bestest friend's baby boy due in July. It looks perfect!

Happy Reading!
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 FTC Disclosure: Clicking on book title and/or image links will lead you to my Amazon Affiliate page.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Review: Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger


Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Hardcover, 320 pages
Atria Books, March 26, 2013 


“That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word. 

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder. 
Frank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family— which includes his Methodist minister father; his passionate, artistic mother; Juilliard-bound older sister; and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother— he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years. 
Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.

What a great story. I loved getting lost along the river and railroad tracks. I imagined a simpler, quieter and more innocent time during childhood. As the deaths start happening in the story the more you realize that the innocence is slowly disappearing, and the veil over the town is being pulled off to show the darker/broken side of the people within it. The growing up that Frank and his brother do during this summer is the true story. They have to deal with a lot of grown up things that they had never been exposed to before. The innocence lost during this period shapes how they will be in the future.

This is a coming of age story and a murder mystery wrapped up in one truly entertaining and gripping tale. Krueger has written a wonderful novel that will please readers of his Cork O'Conner series and new ones as well.

Source: Publisher for review

For more info about the book and author visit his WEBSITE.


Happy Reading!
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 FTC Disclosure: Clicking on book title and/or image links will lead you to my Amazon Affiliate page.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Wordless Wednesday (3/19/13)

At the @calacademy on Friday.
Coral Reef exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences
San Francisco, CA

For more Wordless Wednesday visit : http://wordlesswednesday.blogspot.com


Happy Reading!
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 FTC Disclosure: Clicking on book title and/or image links will lead you to my Amazon Affiliate page.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Review: Heart Like Mine by Amy Hatvany


Heart Like Mine by Amy Hatvany
Paperback, 384 pages
Washington Square Press, March 19, 2013


The unexpected death of a loved one and its effect on the lives of her family is the story of Heart Like Mine. Kelli, a single mom of two kids, is dealing with a secret from her past and the impending marriage of her ex. She is depressed and sick from not sleeping or eating. One morning she goes to sleep and doesn't wake up. Her death is a shock and there are many questions about what may have happened.

The story is told from the point of view of Grace, her ex's fiance and Ava, her teenage daughter. We also get a third point of view. The story of Kelli's childhood, marriage and death interspersed between the present storyline supplied by Grace and Ava. The sharing of the narration and the change between first and third person was a little confusing in the beginning but I was able to get used to the flow pretty quickly especially since the story is so engaging.

This is a beautiful story about family, friendship and love. Grace discovers that she is strong enough to stick around and parent two kids she never planned on having. Ava finds that she is able to be friends, and perhaps even love, her father's new fiance without forgetting about her mom. The two of them are eventually able to work together to discover Kelli's secret and find some solace in knowing more about her and her life.

Source: Publisher for review

For more info about the book and author visit her WEBSITE.


Happy Reading!
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 FTC Disclosure: Clicking on book title and/or image links will lead you to my Amazon Affiliate page.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The Book of Lost Fragrances out in Paperback

 
Paperback Publication Date: March 13, 2013
Publisher:  Atria Books
Paperback; 384p
ISBN-10: 1451621485 

The Book of Lost Fragrances is being rereleased this spring in paperback with an all new beautiful cover. I read and reviewed it last spring and thoroughly enjoyed the mix of history, suspense and fantasy. Read on for more information about the book and author. 

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SYNOPSIS: A Secret Worth Dying For.

Jac L’Etoile is plunged into a world she thought she’d left behind when her brother, coheir to their father’s storied French perfumery, makes an earthshattering discovery in the family archives, and then suddenly goes missing— leaving a dead body in his wake. In Paris to investigate his disappearance, Jac becomes haunted by the legend of the House of L’Etoile. If there is an ancient perfume developed in Cleopatra’s time that holds the power to unlock memories of past lives, possessing it is not only worth living for . . . it’s worth killing for, too.

Fusing history, passion and suspense in an intoxicating web that moves from Cleopatra’s Egypt and the terrors of revolutionary France to Tibet’s battle with China and the glamour of modern-day Paris, this marvelous, spellbinding novel comes to life as richly as our most wildly imagined dreams.

Read an EXCERPT.


Praise for THE BOOK OF LOST FRAGRANCES

Selected by Indie Booksellers for the March 2012 Indie Next List

Selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the Top Ten Mystery/Thrillers Spring 2012

"Compelling... suspenseful tale. Once you catch a whiff, you will be enchanted". —Associated Press

"Rose has entered another realm and written what is bound to be one of this year's best books." —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"From 18th-century Egypt and France to present-day Paris, New York, and China, Rose's deliciously sensual novel of paranormal suspense smoothly melds a perfume-scented quest to protect an ancient artifact with an ages-spanning romance. Rose imbues her characters with rich internal lives in a complex plot that races to a satisfying finish." —Publishers Weekly, Starred and Boxed Review

"Amazing... utterly engrossing. Elegantly written, with unforgettable characters. Will keep you up all night—and leave you with powerful feelings of revelation, wonder, and the infinitude of human possibility." —New York Times best selling author Douglas Preston

"A simmering brew that mingles the erotic sensuality of Patrick Suskind's Perfume with the dark and timeless obsessions of Rider Haggard's classic, She." —New York Times best selling author Katherine Neville

About the Author

M.J. Rose is the international best selling author of eleven novels and two non-fiction books on marketing. Her fiction and non-fiction has appeared in many magazines and reviews including Oprah Magazine. She has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, USA Today and on the Today Show, and NPR radio.  Rose graduated from Syracuse University, spent the '80s in advertising, has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and since 2005 has run the first marketing company for authors - Authorbuzz.com.  The television series PAST LIFE, was based on Rose's novels in the Renincarnationist series. She is one of the founding board members of International Thriller Writers and runs the blog- Buzz, Balls & Hype.  She is also the co-founder of Peroozal.com and BookTrib.com.

Rose lives in CT with her husband the musician and composer, Doug Scofield, and their very spoiled and often photographed dog, Winka.

For more information on M.J. Rose and her novels, please visit her WEBSITE. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.



Happy Reading!
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  FTC Disclosure: Clicking on book title and/or image links will lead you to my Amazon Affiliate page.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Review: The Holder's Dominion by Genese Davis

The Holder's Dominion by Genese Davis
Paperback, 382 pages
Published March 1, 2013
Beaver's Bond Press

Not being a gamer, I wasn't so sure I would enjoy this book, but it sounded so interesting and is set in Austin where I lived for 9 years, that I had to give it a try. I wasn't disappointed.

Kaylie Ames is a student in Austin who has left her mom and brother back in Washington to deal with the death of her father on their own. She finds solace and comfort in the game Edannair, after learning about it and the elite group within that gives missions to applicants both inside and outside of the game. She takes it upon herself to infiltrate this group and reach the Holder, the leader of the group, who she feels is taking advantage of his followers.

Davis is really good at putting the reader into both worlds effortlessly. You forget that the characters are actually just sitting at computers playing a game rather than truly being within the world of Edannair. The world she has created for the game is very thought out and fully realized that I felt I was reading a fantasy novel instead. Because of this, despite not being familiar with this culture of gamers, I had no problem getting sucked into the story.

For more info on the book and author visit her WEBSITE.

Source: sent for review from Jocelyn of Kelly & Hall Book Publicity

Happy Reading!
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 FTC Disclosure: Clicking on book title and/or image links will lead you to my Amazon Affiliate page.