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Book Reviews and News

Every Freaking Day! With Rachell Ray

This book was just written up in today’s USA TODAY. I’ll be interested to see if Rachael Ray responds on her own show(s). You have to admit, this woman looks just like Rachael! I have yet to actually get my hands on a copy, so I don’t know if it is a cute, cheeky parody, or mean and obscene. I hope it is on the lighter side of poking fun.

Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey

I discovered this “digested” review of Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey on The Guardian’s website through Bookslut. It is a really interesting break down of a much talked about book. What I want to know is, what is the point of this series? Is it to ruin the endings of books that are considered a disappointment? Is it to boil an author’s work down to a one page summary of dialogue of plot? I’m confused. Maybe it’s too British for my American brain?

Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be offering such a fantastic book for a summer giveaway! Anne Rivers Siddons is a brilliant writer who has written the perfect book to help you soak in these last days of summer. Post a comment to this blog to be entered in the contest, blog about this contest on your site and receive TWO entries! I will be giving away 5 COPIES! So enter now and keep checking back. I will post the winners on Friday (because what better way to start the weekend then with the announcement that you have just won a great read!).

Here is Publisher’s Weekly review of OFF SEASON:

No one does coastal melodrama like veteran Siddons (Homeplace). Lilly Constable McCall, 53, has led an enviable life—marriage and children with a successful architect, her own success as a sculptor—but husband Cam’s death sends her spiraling. She returns to the coastal family cottage in Edgewater, Maine, where she spent her childhood, and where Cam died. There, she recalls the summer of 1962, and the arrival in town of new girl Peaches Davenport, who envies all Lilly has. That includes the attentions of attractive older boy Jon Lowell, who awakens grown-up feelings in Lilly’s 11-year-old heart. But it’s Lilly’s place as the daughter of a Washington, D.C., professor and the sporadically successful painter and activist Elizabeth Constable—that makes Lilly’s childhood most attractive to Peaches, and to readers. Jon may have shared her first kiss, and Cam her home and children, but it’s the changing relationship between Lilly and the elusive, enigmatic Elizabeth that makes this story fresh.

Nineteenth Street, NW by Brett Wood

Brett Wood has written an incredibly thrilling novel about the highly secured world of currency markets. Sophia Gemaye is a young and exuberant freedom fighter. After an airline bombing goes bad, Sophia comes up with a plan to bring the government and all major corporations crashing down. She plots to sabotage the world’s currency market and destroy every outlet affiliated with commerce and financial security. This plan should go off without a hitch, until she encounters Celine O’Rourke, an angry IMFO (International Monetary and Financial Organization) veteran. Sophia desperately wants to leave her mark on the world’s financial structure, but an attractive computer expert, Harry Hoffinger, and Celine, are destined to give her a run for her money.

What makes this thriller particularly intriguing, and an exceptional read, is that it is written by an international economist turned novelist who has written Nineteenth Street under the pen name, Brett Wood. His biography states that he has lived all over the world, attended boarding schools, Harvard University for both his B.A. and PhD in Economics, taught at Oxford and has lectured at universities around the world. It sounds like this man writes from great experience and from a very powerful position himself. What I loved most about this book is that it keeps you hooked on the story from page one and does not release it’s tight grip until the last page has been turned. Wood writes with authority, excellence and professionalism, but he also tells a great story. Nineteenth Street, NW, opens the door to a secret world buried deep within the corridors of esteemed financial institutions, one that is filled with murder, mystery and suspense. If one page of this book has the potential to be true, we could be in for a wild and terrifying ride. The power, terror and heart-stopping suspense that Wood has woven into this novel will leave the reader unable to put it down. This is a fascinating territory that Wood explores with authenticity and powerful writing.

According to the New York Post, REGIS Philbin’s daughter Joanna, 34, is about to be a published author. Agent Rebecca Oliver at Endeavor has sold a three-book deal to Cynthia Eagan at Little, Brown imprint Poppy. Joanna’s first, “The Daughters of . . . Club,” recounts the “sometimes not-so-phenomenal lives of three childhood friends - the awkward-looking daughter of a ’90s supermodel, the secretly broke daughter of a business tycoon, and the diffident daughter of an iconic pop star” - and will debut in 2010.

Here are the WINNERS for The Geography of Love!!!

Cindi (who wrote about her own marriage in the comments section)

Jena @ Muse Book Reviews

Carmen T @ C-Alexis

Amanda @ Life and Times of a New New Yorker

Now just drop me an email at jocelyn (at) bookfinds (dot) com with your address and I will send the book out to you.

Great Washington Post piece on the beauty of the physical book. Sorry Kindle.

We have more contests coming up! We will be giving away some more GREAT books…so keep checking back! This is BookFinds way of helping you all enjoy the rest of your summer with some great books to take to the beach.

We will be announcing the GEOGRAPHY OF LOVE winner tomorrow at noon, so check back.

Geography of Love by Glenda Burgess

Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon

It has been reported that Jennifer Aniston has not only snapped up the film rights to Jane Fallon’s GETTING RID OF MATTHEW but she’s taking on the lead role, as well.

Publisher’s Weekly Review:

British TV producer Jane Fallon takes careful what you wish for to hilarious heights in her debut novel, a comedy of errors triggered by a mistress who discovers thrice-weekly hookups with her married lover are better than a 24/7 relationship with him. Helen, office staffer at a public relations firm catering to desperate D-list celebrities, is fast approaching her 40th birthday with little chance of swimming out of the secretary pool or snagging a full-time commitment from Matthew, her middle-aged lover and relay relationshipper. When Matthew abruptly leaves wife Sophie and preteen daughters Suzanne and Claudia to move in with Helen, she’s not sure it’s the happy ending she prefers. Thus begins a head-spinning ruse to convince Matthew to go back home and to persuade Sophie and her scene-stealing pair of potty-mouthed children to take him back: Helen invents a new persona, hard-charging PR whiz Eleanor, who befriends Sophie and gives her advice to repair her shattered marriage. The scheme gets more elaborate when Helen/Eleanor falls for Matthew’s estranged eldest son. This delightfully fizzy chick lit caper goes disappointingly flat before the finish, but the surprising and rewarding treat is a bright, grown-up story of two women who discover friendship and trust in one another.

Read more about the book, the film news and the author here.