A Reading Life

Another Monday! Honestly, where does the time go?

Listening To: Nada! So, now my portable CD player conked out so my adapter is pointless. Well, I could use it to listen to the audios I have on my Kindle...if I would remember to bring Anne with...duh! I do have an MP3 player on order so will be hitting up Overdrive at the library very soon...or the free titles I downloaded. A little Anna Dressed in Blood might be a great choice for this time of year, or my friend, J. Kaye's recommendation, Stoker's Manuscript. Decisions, decisions! Now Tanga, hurry up with my order!

Books finished last week:  Also, nada...

Reading: 
City of Bones, Cassandra Clare
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (TuesBookTalk)
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova (read-a-long)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (Classics spin)
The Arrow Chest, Robert Parry (read-a-long at Castle Macabre)
The Old Rectory, Julia Ibbotson (review coming tomorrow)

Coming Up:  
The Shogun's Daughter, Laura Joh Rowland (for review next week)
Something from the list below is a slim possibility...
The Man in the Picture, Susan Hill
The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
Lives of the Monster Dogs, Kirsten Bakis
Contact, Carl Sagan

Watching: The Dexter series finale in two weeks! I can hardly believe it's almost over. What will happen? This has been one of my favorite shows. Last night's episode of Ray Donovan. Wow! I love Liev Schrieber. Such a great actor. Also, last night, the season finale of Silk on PBS. Another terrific British series featured on Masterpiece Mystery. What would I do without Masterpiece? Torchwood: Miracle Day is coming to BBC America Saturday. I never did get to watch it back when it was on Encore so this is my chance to catch up. I saw World War Z again over the weekend at the cheapo theater. Took the boys. They loved it. What a great movie! Next, I'm gearing up for Insidious Chapter 2 this weekend. Can't wait to get scared...I mean, really scared! Woo hoo!!

Making:  I discovered a terrific comfort food recipe for the crockpot. {Crockpot} Chicken and Stuffing using only four ingredients! It's delicious too. You can find the recipe at Table for 7. I've made this several times and my younger son loves it. Let me know if you try it. =O)

Grateful for: the W.O. Smith Music School that allows my sons to take music lessons (both boys--Basic Musicianship, Gabe--Choir, and Reece will have private violin lessons in the new year) for 50 cents per lesson. That's about $15 for the entire year. So truly grateful for this!

Looking forward to:  a book I ordered that I think is finally going to get me on track with my writing and may very well decide my November for me. Top Secret...more later!

Also, the FrightFall Read-a-Thon...coming 9/30 - 10/6! I have sign ups posted so head over and add your name. Yay!

Picture: Goodwill find...Tolstoy, a biography by Henri Troyat and, for review, The Last Neanderthal Clan: Raka of the Last Neanderthal Clan, Lisa Lareau and Charlie Boring.

So, what's going on in your reading life?

Tackle your TBR Read-a-Thon

Yay, another read-a-thon! This one is hosted by Colorimetry and Tressa's Wishful Endings. I've decided to focus on a page count goal, instead of books read due to my participating in so many read-a-longs. My goal is 2000 pages from the following read-a-long and review books on my TBR pile....

• The Old Rectory, Julia Ibbotson
• City of Bones, Cassandra Clare
• Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
• The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
• The Shogun's Daughter, Laura Joh Rowland
• The Arrow Chest, Robert Parry

Are you participating in this read-a-thon? Feel free to leave me a link and I'll stop by and visit. 

Devolution by Peter Clenott: Guest Post

Please welcome my guest today, Peter Clenott, author of Devolution.

I began writing after I took my last college exam. This was back in May 1973, which just goes to show you. At that time no one had any personal computers, so I sat in the student lounge at UMass/Amherst (I actually graduated from Bowdoin but spent my senior year at Smith while taking anthropology courses at UMass) and opened up a notebook and began to write. My tools were sharpened pencils and a big eraser. Once my first draft was completed, along the banks of the Charles River in Boston, I went to a manual typewriter to produce the manuscript. I remember to this day someone yelling at me one early Sunday morning to stop typing. The novel was called THE THIRD WORLD. It was a sci-fi that I ended up not sending to anyone. I still have the original in a bureau drawer at my parents’ house in Portland, Maine. Over the years I wrote dozens of novels and screenplays. Each time I sat down to write, I believed deeply in my latest project. This is the one, I believed. This is the one that’s finally going to make it. Well, 1973 was a long time ago, so you understand what I mean when I said earlier that it just goes to show you. In 2008 HUNTING THE KING was published, my debut novel. I made back what I spent in marketing the book. I got a NY agent for another book titled ALBERTVILLE and thought that I had finally hit the big time. An editor at Harper Collins loved the novel. The fact that I’m writing this article should tell you that once again high hopes ended up getting flattened. To this day I don’t know why she didn’t take the book. In any case, the point of all of this is that I have two books coming out in 2013, THE HUNTED and DEVOLUTION. It remains to be seen how well these books will do and what path my writing career will take. The real point is, you can’t give up. You take what rejections you get and move on. Here’s hoping.

About Devolution
Chiku Flynn wasn’t raised to be a human. Born in Maiko National Park in the Congolese rain forest, Chiku spent the first eleven years of her life as part of an experiment conducted by her parents.

Primatologists Seth Flynn and Samantha Burchill loved their daughter but had no difficulty releasing her into the wild to be studied alongside the chimpanzees of Pan-Dora Island. Impulsive and spontaneous, Chiku proved an apt student, ultimately surpassing her parents in her ability to mingle and communicate with the forest chimpanzees. Pan, the primary male. Scallion, Chiku’s birth mate. Scopes, the provocateur. She plays with them, fashions tools with them, sleeps in their nests, hunts and forages. For Chiku the aboriginal, the primitive, is normal. Then just after her eleventh birthday, everything changes. Chiku witnesses the horrifying death of her mother, pulled out of their boat by a Mamba River crocodile, and her father, Seth Flynn at last sends her ‘home’ to the United States and to a normal teenager’s life.

The problem is, Chiku can’t adapt. Five years and a dozen schools can’t bring her in line. Therapists and psychiatrists can’t figure her out. The pills, when she decides to take them, have no effect. She prefers rolling her own joints and risking life and limb on crazy urban stunts on her roller blades. She is the proverbial wild child, obstinate, defiant, and hopeless. There is a dark side to her past that no one can penetrate. Life is without direction or goal. It is simply experienced and often with catastrophic results. Then Seth Flynn disappears, the chimpanzees he has been studying begin acting crazily, and Chiku’s life is thrown onto a second life-altering course, only this time she is going back to Africa, back to the jungle, where she can put to profound use the one great skill she has: she can communicate with her father’s abandoned chimpanzees using sign language.

The rain forest is in turmoil when Chiku arrives with her older half-sister Cary, a journalist who does not like or trust her defiant sibling. Civil War has led to a massing of refugees on the outskirts of the national park. Poachers are hunting and killing chimpanzees for food or sale. Mining interests and timber companies want to displace the chimpanzees for their own profit. Chiku’s father may well have been a victim of their desires. With the human world threatening to destroy the rain forest and turn Seth Flynn’s chimpanzees into something they have never been, Chiku must step in and reclaim her life and that of the beings she grew up loving.

Pan-Dora Island is sixteen-year old Chiku Flynn’s line in the sand. She is naïve and fearless, guts and fists rather than charm and make-up, a tomboy growing fast into womanhood. The lives of the chimpanzees and the safety of the refugees depend upon her. The affections of three young men hang upon her adolescent desires. She is the focus of bispecies attention and the target of assassins intent on finishing their work. Bruised and jaded by life before she has tasted her first kiss, Chiku Flynn is not a girl to mess with. Yet, if anyone knows anything about love and true devotion, it is Chiku Flynn.

About the author
Peter Clenott is a graduate of Bowdoin College and hails from Portland, Maine. He is the author of the archaeological adventure Hunting the King and currently has three children and lives in Haverhill.

Visit his website at: www.peterclenott.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com.PeterClenott

This book tour was organized by Pump Up Your Book.

Watch for my review...coming soon!

Cat Thursday...Fall is on the way!

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy! (share your post in the Mr. Linky below)

Okay, this cat wants the leaves raked...

and this one doesn't...

Yeah, I know it's not a cat, but who could resist really?

This is me when the Tennessee weather insists on being hot even when it's supposed to be Fall...

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A Reading Life...It's back!

I figured since I'm failing hugely at doing any writing for my Sit Down and Write 4 (except for a couple of reviews and blog posts), that I could at least start back to posting this on Mondays. I haven't done since June. Wow!

Listening To:  I bought an adapter that allows me to play a portable device (mp4 player, CD player) through the radio in my car so I can now listen to audio books again without it skipping and having errors every few seconds. So, I'm listening to Blood of the Lamb by Sam Cabot

Books finished last week:  
The Tudor Conspiracy, C.W. Gortner (REVIEW)
Magnolia & Lotus, edited by Ian Haight (REVIEW)

Reading: 
City of Bones, Cassandra Clare
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (TuesBookTalk)
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova (read-a-long)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (Classics spin)
The Arrow Chest, Robert Parry (read-a-long at Castle Macabre)

Coming Up:  
I have review books this month, but I'm also hoping to pick up a couple more...possibly...
The Man in the Picture, Susan Hill
The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
Lives of the Monster Dogs, Kirsten Bakis
Contact, Carl Sagan

Watching: Just finished watching Longmire last week. Such a great show! Also, the season finale of True Blood was quite a revelation. Still watching Dexter and Ray Donovan on Showtime and The White Queen on Starz. Great shows all around. Copper and Broadchurch on BBC America. I'm still watching Under the Dome, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Oh, and Silk on PBS's Masterpiece Mystery is excellent! At the theater, I've recently seen The Conjuring, Man of Steel, The Lone Ranger, Elysium. I liked them all a lot with Conjuring and Man of Steel being the stand outs for me.

Making:  I'm still cooking regularly. Mostly in the slow cooker. I found a great recipe for slow cooker Lasagna. But this recipe from Six Sisters' Stuff is definitely the stand out. Slow Cooker Cheesy BBQ Chicken Bacon Sandwiches. They are delicious! My sons love them. I use wheat slider buns and make smaller sandwiches. Not sure what I'm making this week. I go grocery shopping on Wednesdays so I have to make my list.

Grateful for: the long weekend we just had. After my work week last week, I was SO ready for an extra day off work.

Looking forward to:  Fall, cool weather, the gorgeous colors, all the fun, scary events going on around the blogosphere, including mine! Also, Insidious 2 coming out in two weeks!

Picture: Dollar Tree finds! The Ambassador's Mission, Trudi Canavan and The Kingdom of Ohio, Matthew Flaming

So, what's been going on in your Reading Life?

HFVBT: Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle {Giveaway} #QueensGambitTour

GIVEAWAY WINNERS: LisaMarie and Lara

About the book
Publication Date: August 6, 2013
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover; 432p
ISBN-10: 147670306X

Widowed for the second time at age thirty-one Katherine Parr falls deeply for the dashing courtier Thomas Seymour and hopes at last to marry for love. However, obliged to return to court, she attracts the attentions of the ailing, egotistical, and dangerously powerful Henry VIII, who dispatches his love rival, Seymour, to the Continent. No one is in a position to refuse a royal proposal so, haunted by the fates of his previous wives—two executions, two annulments, one death in childbirth—Katherine must wed Henry and become his sixth queen.

Katherine has to employ all her instincts to navigate the treachery of the court, drawing a tight circle of women around her, including her stepdaughter, Meg, traumatized by events from their past that are shrouded in secrecy, and their loyal servant Dot, who knows and sees more than she understands. With the Catholic faction on the rise once more, reformers being burned for heresy, and those close to the king vying for position, Katherine’s survival seems unlikely. Yet as she treads the razor’s edge of court intrigue, she never quite gives up on love.

View the Official Book Trailer: http://videos.simonandschuster.com/video/2472116122001

Praise for Queen’s Gambit
"This is a superbly written novel... Fremantle is surely a major new voice in historical fiction and this book is the answer to the question about what Hilary Mantel fans should read while waiting for the final part of her trilogy." - The Bookseller

“Wildly entertaining…lively, gamey, gripped with tension…one of the best historical novels I’ve read.” - Liz Smith

"Elizabeth Fremantle's rich narrative breathes vibrant life into Henry VIII's most intriguing, intelligent and least known wife, Katherine Parr." - Anne Easter Smith author of A Rose for the Crown and Royal Mistress

"Queen's Gambit is an earthy, vivid portrait of Tudor England seen through the eyes of Henry VIII's last wife Katherine Parr and her loyal maid servant. Elizabeth Fremantle has added a richly written and engrossing novel to the endlessly fascinating story of the Tudors." - Stephanie Cowell author of Claude and Camille: A Novel of Monet

"Queen's Gambit is a lovely, sensual, subtle read, telling the story of Katherine Parr with both rich imagination and scrupulous attention to factual detail. After reading this historical novel, you truly comprehend what it would mean to be the sixth wife of a dangerous man wielding absolute power. Katherine is no selfless nurse here, nor religious fanatic, but a complex and compelling person who both men and women were drawn to. This is a very impressive novel." - Nancy Bilyeau author of The Crown

"Beautifully written and finely observed, this suspenseful tale of Henry the Eighth's last wife expertly conveys all the dangerous intensity and passion of the Tudor court." - Rachel Hore, author of A Place of Secrets

"With a painter’s eye for detail, Fremantle brings the dazzling, dangerous Tudor court to life and sheds an intriguing new light on Katherine Parr, one of history’s great survivors. An enthralling tale of power and passion, loyalty and betrayal." - Elizabeth Wilhide, author of Ashenden

"Fremantle...navigates Tudor terrain with aplomb." - Publishers Weekly

"Sins, secrets and guilt dominate the landscape of British writer Fremantle’s debut...[her] emphasis is on intrigue, character portraits and the texture of mid-16th-century life. Solid and sympathetic." - Kirkus Reviews

“Intrigue, romance, and treachery abound in Fremantle’s debut novel . . . . This compulsively readable fictional biography of the ultimate survivor is infused with the type of meticulous attention to historical detailing that discerning fans of Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory have come to expect in the Tudor canon.” - Booklist

About the author

Elizabeth Fremantle holds a first class degree in English and an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck College London. She has contributed as a fashion editor to various publications including Vogue, Elle and The Sunday Times. QUEEN'S GAMBIT is her debut novel and is the first in a Tudor trilogy. The second novel, SISTERS OF TREASON, will be released in 2014. She lives in London.

For more about Elizabeth and her future projects see www.elizabethfremantle.com. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

Visit other blogs on the tour--Tour Schedule
Twitter Hashtag: #QueensGambitTour

GIVEAWAY:
Two copies of Queen's Gambit to winners in the U.S. only. Please leave a comment and be sure to leave a way for me to contact you if you win (email address, Twitter handle, etc). Last day to enter is Monday, September 16 at 11:59pm CST. Good luck!

Wheel of Fortune Spin and R.I.P. VIII Lists

We are doing what is called a "Wheel of Fortune Spin" in my Fantasy Project challenge (thanks, Classics Club for the idea!). We make a list of 15 books from our lists and I will draw a number randomly tomorrow. Here is my list:

1. Mr. Darcy, Vampyre, Amanda Grange
2. The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
3. Sunshine, Robin McKinley
4. Season of the Witch, Natasha Mostert  My spin selection
5. Prophecy of the Sisters, Michelle Zink
6. The Summoning, Kelley Armstrong
7. Marked, P.C. Cast/Kristin Cast
8. Blue Bloods, Melissa De La Cruz
9. Nightwalker, Jocelynn Drake
10. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
11. Good Omens, Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett
12. Dead Witch Walking, Kim Harrison
13. Blood and Chocolate, Annette Curtis Klaus
14. Evermore, Alyson Noel
15. Book of Lost Things, John Connolly

Check out my entire list for The Fantasy Project HERE. Check out the The Fantasy Project challenge HERE.

Click image for details and to sign up

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril, VIII

Read two books of any length that you believe fit within the R.I.P. categories.

I'm going to read at least two (plus the group read):

• Joyland, Stephen King
• Wheel of Fortune Spin selection- Season of the Witch, Natasha Mostert (curious? Look here)

This is for those of us that like to watch suitably scary, eerie, mysterious gothic fare during this time of year. It may be something on the small screen or large. It might be a television show, like Dark Shadows or Midsomer Murders, or your favorite film. If you are so inclined, please post links to any R.I.P.-related viewing you do on to the Review Site as well.

Insidious 2, anyone? I'll be seeing it the first weekend it's out. I can't wait! I'm also hoping to see a film called We Are What We Are. See the trailer HERE. It looks off the hook! I'm sure I will be watching more scary, as I LOVE horror films and anything remotely scary or creepy.

Finally, there's this...

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. This will be a re-read for me, but it's one of my favorite books and I've often thought I would read it again someday. Why not join in with others in reading it this time? Too right!

This goes perfectly with my Gothic September and Season of the Witch over at Castle Macabre this Fall!

Thanks to Carl for hosting once again. I look forward to his "challenges" every year!