Aug
18
2010
Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is heartbroken over the death of her beloved aunt Rose. But the shock goes even deeper when she learns that the woman who has been like a mother to her has left her entire estate to Julie’s twin sister. The only thing Julie receives is a key—one carried by her mother on the day she herself died—to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy.
This key sends Julie on a journey that will change her life forever—a journey into the troubled past of her ancestor Giulietta Tolomei. In 1340, still reeling from the slaughter of her parents, Giulietta was smuggled into Siena, where she met a young man named Romeo. Their ill-fated love turned medieval Siena upside-down and went on to inspire generations of poets and artists, the story reaching its pinnacle in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy.
But six centuries have a way of catching up to the present, and Julie gradually begins to discover that here, in this ancient city, the past and present are hard to tell apart. The deeper she delves into the history of Romeo and Giulietta, and the closer she gets to the treasure they allegedly left behind, the greater the danger surrounding her—superstitions, ancient hostilities, and personal vendettas. As Julie crosses paths with the descendants of the families involved in the unforgettable blood feud, she begins to fear that the notorious curse—“A plague on both your houses!”—is still at work, and that she is destined to be its next target. Only someone like Romeo, it seems, could save her from this dreaded fate, but his story ended long ago. Or did it?
From Anne Fortier comes a sweeping, beautifully written novel of intrigue and identity, of love and legacy, as a young woman discovers that her own fate is irrevocably tied—for better or worse—to literature’s greatest star-crossed lovers.
Debut novelist Anne Fortier has written one of the most perfect examples of historical fiction. 14th century Giulietta Tomei and her star-crossed lover Romeo inspired Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Now, centuries later, Julie Jacobs has to explore these family feuds and deep scars while searching for her own personal truth. After a terrible loss, Julie travels to Sienna, Italy in search of a key to her family’s history. Throughout this heroic journey she must seek the truth and expose the lies at every turn. Blending the tragedy surrounding Shakespearean prose with a modern day romance novel, Fortier brings readers a compelling mystery and beautiful love story. The writing is exemplary and Fortier proves herself as a truly gifted storyteller.
Aug
17
2010
To get you ready for back-to-school, we are running a SUPER SUPER giveaway. Two (2) copies of MY LITTLE PHONY by Lisi Harrison. The contest deadline is Friday, August 27th. The rules are simple. Leave a comment. If YOU have a blog, link to this post for an automatic THREE (3) entries.
Aug
17
2010
It appears that The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart is shaping up to be the next Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. According to The Washington Post it is a “zany and touching novel” about Beefeater Balthazar Jones and his wife Hebe and their 181-year-old tortoise pet tortoise. It is also written up in USA Today with a glowing mention. I’m also loving the cover! Julia Stuart is the author of The Matchmaker of Perigord.
Aug
17
2010
According to New York Daily News, Rooney Mara has landed the lead role in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. She will be starring opposite former Bond-man, Daniel Craig, in Stieg Larsson’s blockbuster novel. Craig and Mara will also star in the U.S. film versions of the novel’s two sequels, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST.
Aug
16
2010
And he explains that in this author video.
Aug
16
2010
Angela Clark is in love—with the most fabulous city in the world!
When Angela catches her boyfriend with another woman at her best friend’s wedding, she’s heartbroken and desperate to run away. With little more than a crumpled bridesmaid dress, a pair of Louboutins, and her passport in hand, Angela decides to jump on a plane for . . . NYC!
Settling into a cute hotel and quickly bonding with benevolent concierge Jenny—a chatterbox Oprah wannabe with room for a new best friend—Angela heads out for a New York makeover, some serious retail therapy, and a whirlwind tour of the city. Before she knows it, she’s dating two sexy guys and blogging about her Big Apple escapades for a real fashion magazine. But while it’s one thing telling readers about your romantic dilemmas, it’s another working them out for yourself. Angela has fallen head over heels for the city that never sleeps, but does she heart New York more than home?
I can’t wait to read this one! I’ve been a fan of Lindsey Kelk since reading about her on Trashionista and reading her blog. This looks like it will be chick lit at its best!
Aug
13
2010
Here is what was IN MY MAILBOX this week (thanks to The Story Siren for inspiring this post). I love, love, love her site!!
What would you do if the love of your life, and all your memories, were lost- only to reappear, but with such shocking revelations that you wish you had never remembered…
Emmett Conn is an old man, near the end of his life. A World War I veteran, he’s been affected by memory loss since being injured during the war. To those around him, he’s simply a confused man, fading in and out of senility. But what they don’t know is that Emmett has been beset by memories, of events he and others have denied or purposely forgotten.
In Emmett’s dreams he’s a gendarme, escorting Armenians from Turkey. A young woman among them, Araxie, captivates and enthralls him. But then the trek ends, the war separates them. He is injured. Seven decades later, as his grasp on the boundaries between past and present begins to break down, Emmett sets out on a final journey, to find Araxie and beg her forgiveness.
Mark Mustian has written a remarkable novel about the power of memory-and the ability of people, individually and collectively, to forget. Depicting how love can transcend nationalities, politics, and religion, how racism creates divisions where none truly exist, and how the human spirit fights to survive even in the face of hopelessness, The Gendarme is a transcendent novel.
The last thing Melanie expected to lose when she went on a diet was her husband.
Former lawyer Melanie Hoffman lost half her body weight and opened a gourmet take-out café specializing in healthy and delicious food. Then her husband left her-for a woman twice her size. Immediately afterwards, she’s blindsided by a financial crisis. Melanie reaches out to a quirky roommate with a ton of baggage and becomes involved in a budding romance with a local documentary filmmaker.
In this warm and often laugh-out-loud novel, Melanie discovers that she still has a lot to learn about her friends, her relationships with men, and herself-and that her weight loss was just the beginning of an amazing journey that will transform her life from the inside out..
Rachel Braun was the inspiration to her group of friends, the one who lived each day to the fullest – and the one whose life was cut tragically short. Upon her untimely death, Rachel left letters for her three best friends challenging them to face their biggest fears.
Sarah, an international relief worker, must travel half way around the world to track down the only man she ever loved. Stay-at-home mom Kate must confront her fear of heights by skydiving and soon finds that her new hobby is affecting her once-tranquil marriage. And Jo, a media mogul voted “least likely to breed,” is given the most terrifying assignment of all: caring for Rachel’s orphaned and grieving little girl.
Even as these women mourn Rachel’s passing, her legacy lives on and their lives are enriched by a friend who, in many ways, knew them better than they knew themselves.
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.
Peter Webster is a rookie paramedic when he pulls a young woman out of a car wreck that should have killed her. Sheila haunts his thoughts, and despite his misgivings, Peter is soon embroiled in an intense love affair. Nineteen years later, Sheila is long gone and Peter is raising their daughter, Rowan, alone—until a phone call from Sheila alters their quiet existence, bringing long-buried questions back to the surface. A story about trespass and forgiveness, secrets and the seismic force of the truth, Rescue is a masterful portrayal of a family trying to understand its own fractured past and begin again. Anita Shreve is the acclaimed author of 15 previous novels, including A Change in Altitude, Testimony, and The Pilot’s Wife, which was an Oprah Book Club selection.
Aug
12
2010
According to MediaBistro’s GalleyCat, Jonathan Franzen has become the first living novelist to grace the cover of Time magazine in ten years. Novelist Stephen King was the last writer to hold to coveted spot, back in 2000.
Here’s an excerpt: “Franzen is a member of another perennially threatened species, the American literary novelist. But he’s not as cool about it as the otters. He’s uneasy. He’s a physically solid guy, 6 ft. 2 in., with significant shoulders, but his posture is not so much hunched as flinched. At 50 (he turns 51 on Aug. 17), Franzen is pleasantly boyish-looking, with permanently tousled hair.”
A complete list of all the authors that starred in Time cover stories follows below. Sarah Weinman reminds us that the online edition Lev Grossman’s cover story about Franzen is abridged. The online article explains: “This is an abridged version of an article that appears in the August 23, 2010, print and iPad editions of TIME magazine.”
Here is a list of author’s who have graced the TIME magazine cover.
Virginia Woolf (1937)
William Faulkner (1939)
Robert Frost (1950)
James Baldwin (1963)
John Updike (1968)
Norman Mailer (1973)
Alexander Solzhentisyn (1974)
John Le Carre (1977)
Michael Crighton (1995)
Toni Morrison (1998)
Stephen King (2000)
Jonathan Franzen (2010)
The New Yorker also has a post about the cultural weight of Franzen’s appearance on the cover.
Aug
12
2010
It has been 12 years but Dennis Lehane is returning to his most popular characters for his new novel, Moonlight Mile, which is going to be released on November 2nd.
It’s a sequel to Gone Baby, Gone and it takes place in 1997, where the once missing Amanda McCready is now sixteen and a straight A student, who wants to leave her irresponsible mother and Dorchester neighborhood, but then she goes missing again…
Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston suburb in 1997. Desperate pleas for help from the child’s aunt led savvy, tough-nosed investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl—only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home.
Now Amanda is 16—and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Yet Amanda’s aunt is once more knocking at Patrick Kenzie’s door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, bright young woman who hasn’t been seen in two weeks.
Haunted by the past, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most, following a 12-year trail of secrets and lies down the darkest alleys of Boston’s gritty, blue-collar streets. Assuring themselves that this time will be different, they vow to make good on their promise to find Amanda and see that she is safe. But their determination to do the right thing holds dark implications Kenzie and Gennaro aren’t prepared for . . . consequences that could cost them not only Amanda’s life, but their own.
Aug
11
2010
The actress Frances McDormand loves books! According to the website Deadline, McDormand has optioned two books for both television and movie adaptations.
Appearing in a new role–producer–Frances McDormand has set at HBO a potential series adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Elizabeth Strout novel Olive Kitteridge. Separately, she has attached Diane Lane to star in a Nicole Holofcener-scripted feature adaptation of Laura Lippman’s crime novel Every Secret Thing. McDormand got both projects off the ground and while she will play the town’s seventh grade math teacher Olive Kitteridge if the pilot script Jane Anderson’s writing becomes an HBO series, McDormand doesn’t plan to appear on camera in Every Secret Thing.
