Waiting on Wednesday: New Summer Novels

 

 

 

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature of the Breaking the Spine blog.  It's a great way to share information about forthcoming books with other readers.

 

This week I'm featuring TWO new novels, both of which will be available next week, on June 25th.

 

Beautiful Day by Elin Hilderbrand (Publisher: Little, Brown & Company)

From barnesandnoble.com: The Carmichaels and the Grahams have gathered on Nantucket for a wedding. Plans are being made according to the wishes of the bride's late mother, who left behind The Notebook: specific instructions for every detail of her youngest daughter's future nuptials. Everything should be falling into place for the beautiful event—but in reality, things are far from perfect.

While the couple-to-be are quite happy, their loved ones find their own lives crumbling. In the days leading up to the wedding, love will be questioned, scandals will arise, and hearts will be broken and healed. Elin Hilderbrand takes readers on a touching journey in BEAUTIFUL DAY—into the heart of marriage, what it means to be faithful, and how we choose to honor our commitments.

 

  Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld (Publisher: Random House Publishing Group)

From barnesandnoble.com: From an early age, Kate and her identical twin sister, Violet, knew that they were unlike everyone else. Kate and Vi were born with peculiar “senses”—innate psychic abilities concerning future events and other people’s secrets. Though Vi embraced her visions, Kate did her best to hide them.

Now, years later, their different paths have led them both back to their hometown of St. Louis. Vi has pursued an eccentric career as a psychic medium, while Kate, a devoted wife and mother, has settled down in the suburbs to raise her two young children. But when a minor earthquake hits in the middle of the night, the normal life Kate has always wished for begins to shift. After Vi goes on television to share a premonition that another, more devastating earthquake will soon hit the St. Louis area, Kate is mortified. Equally troubling, however, is her fear that Vi may be right. As the date of the predicted earthquake quickly approaches, Kate is forced to reconcile her fraught relationship with her sister and to face truths about herself she’s long tried to deny.

Funny, haunting, and thought-provoking, SISTERLAND is a beautifully written novel of the obligation we have toward others, and the responsibility we take for ourselves. With her deep empathy, keen wisdom, and unerring talent for finding the extraordinary moments in our everyday lives, Curtis Sittenfeld is one of the most exceptional voices in literary fiction today.

 

My thoughts:  In time for summer reading, two new novels about families and significant events from popular authors. I was fortunate enough to snag copies of both books at BEA 2013 and look forward to breaking their spines.

 

 

Enjoy life with books...

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Waiting on Wednesday: New Summer Novels was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #18 and Tuesday Teaser

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros is a weekly meme hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea. It's an opportunity to share the first paragraphs of a book I am currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

This week I'm featuring the opening paragraphs from The Execution of Noa P. Singleton  by Elizabeth L. Silver, a book I got at the pre-BEA 2013 Random House Author Breakfast last month and hope to start soon.

Read on after the intro for my Tuesday Teaser.

 

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group 

Publication date: 6/11/2013

 "In this world, you are either good or evil.  If not, then a court or a teacher or a parent is bound to tag your identity before you've had a chance to figure it out on your own.  The gray middle ground, that mucous-thin terrain where most of life resides, is really only a temporary annex, like gestation or purgatory.  It shadows over everyone in its vacuous and insipid cape, flying across the sky, making smoke letters out of your fears.  You always know it's up there, but you never quite know how to get rid of it.  It waits for you, patiently, until the day it wraps you in its cyclone and you can no longer vacillate between black and white, artist or scientist, teacher or student.  It is this point at which you must choose one way of life or the other.  Victor or victim.  And when you do, the fear drips away as seamlessly as a river drains into an ocean.  For me, it happened on January 1, 2003.

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My name is Noa P. Singleton.  I am thirty-five years old and I reside in the Pennsylvania Institute for Women.  My identification number is 10271978.  I am the only child of Miss Teenage California 1970 and a weeklong sperm donor whose name my mother claimed she couldn't recall.  I was salutatorian for my high school, where I ran varsity track and wrote for the school newspaper, investigating the illicit and often extensive use and sale of drugs on campus.  I studied biochemistry and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and have worked as a restaurant hostess, roller rink waitress, substitute teacher, math tutor, and laboratory research assistant.  I can recall with faint hyperbole the moment I took my first steps.  I've had one serious boyfriend.  The trial that led me to you lasted only five days, though the jury deliberated for another four.  It took only a handful of additional jury pools to select the twelve individuals who were to sentence me to death five short months following my trial.  Their names are now embossed in my memory, along with my grandmother's scent (mothballs and jewelry cleaner), my first boyfriend's habitual post-coital cigarette, and the feeling of the Latin letters from my high school diploma raised against my thumb."

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?  There's been so much buzz about this book and I've seen it on several must-read new book lists.  For these reasons, it's on my summer reading list and I hope to get to it sooner rather than later.

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Teaser Tuesdays, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading, is a weekly event where bloggers open to a random page and share a teaser from somewhere on that page--no spoilers allowed.

 

Here's my teaser from The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver:

"'Look, I want to help you, Noa,' she said, her voice slipping.  'I want to talk to the governor about you.  But if I'm going to use my influence to speak with the governor and tell him that, as the victim's mother, I cannot live with this execution, I need something--anything--from you that tells me that you have changed.'" ~p.19

Enjoy life with books . . .

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #18 and Tuesday Teaser was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

Sunday's Weekly Book Recap #22

Here's my recap of books that I'm reading or have acquired this week, which I am sharing on the following blogs:

        

                                   

                       
Sunday Post hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer /Stacking the Shelves hosted by the team at Tynga's Reviews /  Showcase Sunday hosted by Vicky at  Books, Biscuits, and Tea . . .

My Week in Books, June 9-15, 2013

Currently reading . . .
                                            
The Violets of March by Sarah Jio; Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Finished reading . . .                    
                      

Daddy's Gone A Hunting by Mary Higgins Clark, The Fault in our Stars by John Green, Race Across the Sky by Derek Sherman

 

Borrowed from a friend . . .

    While We Were Watching Downton Abbey by Wendy Wax

 

 Ebooks downloaded . . .

 

     

 

 

                                          

Nook: Fearless by Tawdra Kandle, Secrets by Kristen Heitzmann, Enchantress by James Maxwell, Far Horizons by Kate Hewitt, The Lost Code by Kevin Emerson; Kindle: Black Butterflies by Sara Alexi, Stitch by Samantha Durante, When Empires Fall by Katie Jennings, From Mangia to Murder by Caroline Mickelson, Plum Girl by Jill Winters, The Librarian by Eric Hobbs, Chocolate Beach by Julie Carobini, Fool Me Twice by Paul Levine, Sleeping Beauty by Elle Lothlorien

Which books did you get this week?
   

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Sunday's Weekly Book Recap #22 was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

Saturday Shorts: Weekend Words

 

"O Day of days when we can read!

The reader and the book, 

either without the other is naught."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher and poet (1803-1882)

 

Read this and other Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes online at BrainyQuote.

 

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Saturday Shorts: Weekend Words was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

Friday Focus: Book Beginnings and The Friday 56

 

Today I am participating for the first time in two Friday memes:  

Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  

The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

My book this week:

 

 Daddy's Gone A Hunting by Mary Higgins Clark

Book Beginnings, p. 1

"Sometimes Kate dreamed about that night, even though it wasn't a dream.  It had really happened."

This opener draws me in immediately.  I haven't even turned a page and already I want to know: Who is Kate?  What happened that night?  Why is it haunting her?  It's a great example of why Mary Higgins Clark is called the queen of suspense.

The Friday 56, p. 56

"At the end of the questioning, as they left, the marshals, even though they were keeping an open mind, had a gut feeling that Kate had found a willing partner to help her do what she had told several people she wanted to do."

Enjoy life with books...

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Friday Focus: Book Beginnings and The Friday 56 was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

Waiting on Wednesday: New Barbara Delinsky Novel

 

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature of the Breaking the Spine blog.  It's a great way to share information about a forthcoming book with other readers.

 

This week's anticipated book:

 

 

Sweet Salt Air by Barbara Delinksy

Publication Date: June 18, 2013

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Preorder now from online and bricks and mortar bookstores

In stores next week!

From barnesandnoble.com:

On Quinnipeague, hearts open under the summer stars and secrets float in the Sweet Salt Air...

Charlotte and Nicole were once the best of friends, spending summers together in Nicole's coastal island house off of Maine. But many years, and many secrets, have kept the women apart. A successful travel writer, single Charlotte lives on the road, while Nicole, a food blogger, keeps house in Philadelphia with her surgeon-husband, Julian. When Nicole is commissioned to write a book about island food, she invites her old friend Charlotte back to Quinnipeague, for a final summer, to help. Outgoing and passionate, Charlotte has a gift for talking to people and making friends, and Nicole could use her expertise for interviews with locals. Missing a genuine connection, Charlotte agrees.

But what both women don't know is that they are each holding something back that may change their lives forever. For Nicole, what comes to light could destroy her marriage, but it could also save her husband. For Charlotte, the truth could cost her Nicole’s friendship, but could also free her to love again. And her chance may lie with a reclusive local man, with a heart to soothe and troubles of his own.

Bestselling author and master storyteller Barbara Delinsky invites you come away to Quinnipeague…

My thoughts:  Coast Road was my introduction to the work of Barbara Delinksy, and I have been a fan of her novels ever since.  I've spent many pleasurable hours getting to know Delinsky's smart, strong, engaging women and the inviting fictional settings she creates.  Her characters embody the qualities I value most in relationships.  I'm delighted to have this author's new book to savor this summer.

Enjoy life with books...

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Waiting on Wednesday: New Barbara Delinksy Novel was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #17 and Tuesday Teaser

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros is a weekly meme hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea. It's an opportunity to share the first paragraphs of a book I am currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

This week I'm featuring the opening paragraphs from a book I hope to start later this week, Daddy's Gone A Hunting by Mary Higgins Clark, a book on loan from my local library.

Read on after the intro for my Tuesday Teaser.

 

Published by Simon & Schuster

 Publication date: 4/9/2013

 

Prologue

Sometimes Kate dreamed about that night, even though it wasn't a dream.  It had really happened.  She was three years old and had been curled up on the bed watching Mommy getting dressed.  Mommy looked like a princess.  She was wearing a beautiful red evening gown and the red satin high heels that Kate loved to try on.  Then Daddy came into the bedroom and he picked Kate up and danced her and Mommy onto the balcony even though it was beginning to snow.

I begged him to sing my song and he did, Kate remembered.

Bye baby bunting.

Daddy's gone a-hunting.

A rosy wisp of cloud to win,

To wrap his baby bunting in.

The next night Mommy died in the accident, and Daddy never sang that song to her again.

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?  I've read and enjoyed nearly all of Mary Higgins Clark's thrillers, including the ones written with her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark.  I have been a fan since reading Where are the Children? while vacationing in Cape Cod many years ago.  She is a great storyteller, and I'm looking forward to reading her latest tale.

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Teaser Tuesdays, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading, is a weekly event where bloggers open to a random page and share a teaser from somewhere on that page--no spoilers allowed.

Here's my teaser from Daddy's Gone A Hunting by Mary Higgins Clark:

"The nightmare.  The flowered nightgown and running down the hall.  It was very important to remember what happened.  She was almost there.  For a moment she had remembered.  She was sure of it.

But then everything was dark again."  ~ p. 53

Enjoy life with books . . .

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #17 and Tuesday Teaser was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.