~ Revealed Books ~


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Sidney reveals
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn



Book Description
Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram,* “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel. The result is both a hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.

*pangram: a sentence or phrase that includes all the letters of the alphabet

I just loved how the author played with words as they drop from the alphabet one by one...

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Giz reveals
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman



I loved this book SO much - not my usual genre, I am REALLY fussy about what fantasy I read as most of it, IMO, is tosh. This book was one of those that I literally did not want it to end - I felt bereft when I'd finished it, and I have tried to thrust a copy of it on everyone I know! I cannot completely put my finger on what it was that blew me away - which is a good thing - as it's clever, and sometimes that can be a turn off....

It has 4 1/2 stars on Amazon - which is outrageous it should have 10 stars! OK ok 5.

Synopsis
Under the streets of London there's a world most people could never even dream of - a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet. Richard Mayhew is a young businessman who is about to find out more than he bargained for about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his safe and predictable life and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and yet utterly bizarre. There's a girl named Door, an Angel called Islington, an Earl who holds Court on the carriage of a Tube train, a Beast in a labyrinth, and dangers and delights beyond imagining...And Richard, who only wants to go home, is to find a strange destiny waiting for him below the streets of his native city.

My copy is actually a US one rather than the UK one.

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Ladiibug reveals
The Dim Sum of All Things by Kim Wong Keltner



From Publishers Weekly
Wong Keltner's spunky novel about a third-generation Chinese-American in San Francisco delivers a left hook to knee-jerk political correctness and offers a comic, honest take on what it feels like to be part of two cultures.

Lindsey Owyang is a modern 20-something, underemployed as a receptionist at Vegan Warrior magazine (she's a "closet meat-eater"), who unexpectedly finds herself falling "in like" with Michael Cartier, the magazine's white travel editor. But dating's tough when you live at home with a traditional Chinese grandmother and even harder when that grandmother is constantly trying to set you up with the children of her mah-jongg partners.

Meanwhile, Lindsay's aunt gets colored contacts (" 'Don't you think I look at least half-white anyway?' "); a white friend says that Asian girls are stealing all the cute frat boys; and creepy "Hoarders of All Things Asian" accost her on the bus. Lindsey gets a chance to connect with her roots when she finds out that she's expected to accompany her grandmother to China to visit long-lost relatives. Here Lindsey finally gains a grounded sense of her personal and cultural past, while at the same time realizing that as an ABC (American-born Chinese), "every experience, even the unpleasant ones, had helped to slowly build her character, creating a one-of-a-kind Chinese American named Lindsey Owyang." Wong Keltner is unabashedly sassy and biting in her take on race and love, and the result is both refreshing and smart.

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CheriePie reveals
Owls Well That Ends Well by Donna Andrews



This is the 6th book in Donna Andrews's hilarious Meg Lanslow Mystery series

It's not required to read these books in the order they were published. In a few cases, it might give you some additional background about some of the main characters and their personalities, but it certainly doesn't affect the story negatively by not doing so. I started with the fourth book myself, and then went back and found the earlier ones.

Book Description
Ever since Murder with Peacocks won the Malice Domestic Contest (not to mention the Agatha and Anthony awards for best first novel), Donna Andrews has kept readers laughing. As Publishers Weekly says of Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon, "There's a smile on every page and at least one chuckle per chapter."

But the secret of Andrews's humor isn't sharp gags and one-liners. From Meg Langslow and her boyfriend, Michael, to the minor characters who cross the stage and disappear, Andrews writes about real people, and invites the reader to join in the fun.

In Owls Well That Ends Well, Meg and Michael have bought a very elderly house from the estate of the uncrowned Queen of the Packrats, a woman who bought everything and kept it all. When the house became overcrowded, she moved the overflow into the barn. When the barn was crammed, she began filling the property's sheds. When she died, her "holdings" left the various grandnieces and grandnephews with decades of junk. They avoid the job of cleaning it up by selling the place "as is" to Meg and Michael, sticking them with the lot. Their solution: a yard sale.

As always, Meg's large family flocks in to offer their dubious help. Many even come with junk of their own to add to the sale. Meg's mother, sure that Meg has taken care of all the "treasures," turns to drawing up elaborate redecorating plans. Meg's dad, newly elected president of SPOOR (Stop Poisoning Our Owls and Raptors) shoulders the cause of the endangered baby owls and their mother who live in the barn. His further contribution is the announcement that anyone who arrives in costume earns a ten percent discount.

Meg is coping (barely) with all this until the body of a local antique dealer is discovered in an old trunk. She and her dad have a further shock: the trunk is in the barn, in reckless disregard of Dad's beloved newborn owls. The police temporarily close the sale down to investigate. When the professor who can swing the vote in favor of Michael's tenure becomes a suspect, Meg decides that the only way to prove his innocence, and avoid being stuck with several tons of unsold junk, is to find the killer herself, and quickly.

Andrews's amusing signature spin on mystery and a new assortment of feathery friends make this a priceless addition to the series

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Intry reveals
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk



Amazon.com
Some say that the apocalypse swiftly approacheth, but that simply ain't so according to Chuck Palahniuk. Oh no. It's already here, living in the head of the guy who just crossed the street in front of you, or maybe even closer than that. We saw these possibilities get played out in the author's bloodsporting-anarchist-yuppie shocker of a first novel, Fight Club. Now, in Survivor, his second and newest, the concern is more for the origin of the malaise. Starting at chapter 47 and screaming toward ground zero, Palahniuk hurls the reader back to the beginning in a breathless search for where it all went wrong. This time out, the author's protagonist is self-made, self-ruined mogul-messiah Tender Branson, the sole passenger of a jet moments away from slamming first into the Australian outback and then into oblivion. All that will be left, Branson assures us with a tone bordering on relief, is his life story, from its Amish-on-acid cult beginnings to its televangelist-huckster end. All of this courtesy of the plane's flight recorder.

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malagan reveals
Brick Lane by Monica Ali



Brick Lane by Monica AliBrick Lane tells the story of Hazneen, who came to England from Bangladesh at the age of 18 for an arranged marriage to Chanu, who is both pompous and ineffectual. When she arrives, she can speak only two words of English, but falls into the role of dutiful wife and mother. Not only is she always an outsider, an immigrant to a foreign land, but her Bangladeshi roots keep her in a subserviant role in her marriage and family. Yet there is always that pull from the homeland. In Bangladesh, her sister, Hasina, had eloped with her lover, spurning her arranged marriage. This only resulted in heartbreak and tragedy. Monica Ali's debut novel delves into the landscape of love, family, and the yearning for a sense of belonging. Receiving mostly positive reviews, The Observer says of Brick Lane, "This highly evolved, accomplished book is a reminder of how exhilarating novels can be: it opened up a world whose contours I could recognise, but which I needed Monica Ali to make me understand." Brick Lane was a short list nominee for the 2003 Man Booker Prize.

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azuki reveals
The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen



During a Passover Seder, Hannah is chosen to open the door to welcome the prophet Elijah. As she does so, she is transported to a village in Poland in the 1940s, where everyone calls her Chaya. She is captured by the Nazis and taken to a death camp, where she is befriended by a young girl named Rivka, who teaches her how to fight the dehumanizing processes of the camp and hold onto her identity.

I read this earlier in the year and thought it a beautiful, very touching story. As the story is told from a time-traveler's perspective, it is poignant in a different way than say, Bitter Herb, where the family discussed what color of sewing thread goes well with the star, blissfully unaware of the horror ahead. Now every time I see a picture of Holocaust victim with a tattooed arm, I am reminded of the book: "J is for Jew. And 1 is for me alone. And 9... is for no. No I will not die here. 7 is every day of the week that I stay alive. 2 is for Gitl and Shmuel who are my guardians. 4 is for my family in New Rochelle. And 1 because I am all alone. J197241." said Chaya.

I picked this up at the library book sale so more people can enjoy it through bookcrossing.

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Antheras reveals
Before I Wake by Robert J. Wiersema



Book Description:
A Canadian fiction debut with the emotional weight of The Lovely Bones, Before I Wake reveals how hope can be renewed even in the face of unimaginable sorrow.

Tragedy can arrive at any time. In a single moment of distraction, in one misjudgment . . .

On a bright spring day, three-year-old Sherry Barrett is left comatose after a hit-and-run accident. When it appears she will never recover, her devastated parents, Simon and Karen, agree to remove her from life support. Amazingly, she doesn’t die – nor does she wake.

Meanwhile, the driver of the truck, Henry Denton, attempts suicide. But he doesn’t die either, instead finding himself in a place of darkness, somewhere between this world and the next, invisible to all except a group of mysterious and downtrodden men. Haunted by his own guilt, Henry struggles to understand this limbo, and what he must do to free himself.

Under the pressure of caring for their child, the fissures in Simon and Karen’s marriage become gaping wounds, and the family is pushed to the point of collapse. And then they are pushed even further – by the undeniable fact that their little girl, trapped in her living death, is a source of miracles.

As the world turns its lens on the family, and the sick and dying arrive to be healed, Simon and Karen must decide whether or not to allow these “pilgrims” access to their daughter. At the same time, a larger battle is brewing – one that has been raging for close to two thousand years, and that might yet claim the lives of Sherry and her family.

Part domestic novel, part thriller – contemporary realism touched with the fantastic – Before I Wake is an exploration of the limits of human strength, of the power of forgiveness, and of the true nature, and cost, of miracles.

How do you hold a moment, knowing that it is the last? How do you take in enough to last you through a lifetime of absence?

I don’t want to remember her like this – broken and bleeding, the machine pressing air into her tiny lungs. I want to remember yesterday, the way she laughed and ran; so alive, so filled with joy. I want to carry the stones she chose as a reminder of her, smiling and running.

But I can’t choose. I know that I’ll remember this room as much as those mornings with the three of us in the big bed, snuggling and tickling and refusing to face the day. I know that I’ll remember these bloodstained bandages as much as I’ll remember last Christmas, her look of wonder as Simon read the note that Santa Claus left her, thanking her for the cookies. I know that I’ll remember the moment I choose to let her go, the moment I feel her last breath, as vividly as I remember that gush of blood and love I felt as I heard her first cry, as I first saw her, tiny and twisted and perfect, wailing to raise the moon.

Ashes to ashes. Blood to blood. Cries to silence.
–From Before I Wake

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Bookgal reveals
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson



Olivia Hunt is unemployed, living alone in a dump, and working on the fourth draft of her suicide note when she gets a phone call that lets her know what real trouble is. Maddie Hunt is her younger sister, the annoyingly happy one who married the hometown guy while Olivia set out to conquer Hollywood, ha ha. And Maddie is in trouble. Pulled home for the first time in years, Olivia gets a painful dose of real life as she tries to help her sister, keep her parents from running off the rails, and reconnect with the boyfriend who left without a word but might still be the love of her life. And, of course, the movie she's been trying to put in front of cameras for years heats up just as she leaves town. Racing between Hollywood, hospital rooms, and film sets in Spain, Olivia has to do the impossible at work and at home-and learns that love will let her do no less. By turns charming, disarming, heartrending, and hilarious, this is a novel for anyone who has ever loved a sister (or a great story).

post :)

AM10000 reveals
Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore



Amazon.com
Here's something different: a vampire novel that's light, funny, and not at all hackneyed. Between scenes of punks bowling frozen turkeys on the graveyard shift in a supermarket, or snapping turtles loose in a loft and gnawing on designer shoes, this novel has comic charm to spare. But it also packs an appealingly downbeat message about the consumer culture: Becoming a vampire has given the twentysomething heroine "a crampless case of rattlesnake PMS"--a grumpy mood in which she realizes that she can dress to the nines as a "Donner Party Barbie" and still end up disillusioned and unhappy, just another slacker doing her own laundry and watching sucky TV 'til the sun rises.

From Publishers Weekly
Horror, farce and adolescent fantasy mix with uncertain results in this latest offbeat novel from the author of Coyote Blue and Practical Demonkeeping. Attacked on her way home from work in San Francisco's financial district, sexy redhead Jody wakes up under a dumpster and gradually realizes that she has transformed into a vampire. Needing a safe place to hide from daylight and her attacker as she masters her new powers, she turns to Tommy, a 19-year-old aspiring writer from Indiana whom she's just met. Becoming lovers, the two get an apartment together where Tommy avidly studies the mysteries of both vampires and women. But Jody's vampire mentor, Elijah Ben Sapir, who's leaving blood-drained bodies all over the city, has it in for Tommy?as do the cops, who suspect the young man of the killings. With the aid of both the rebellious young misfits he works with and an eccentric homeless man, Tommy aims to vanquish Elijah Ben Sapir in order to save his beloved and himself. Moore's seemingly off-the-cuff narrative and plotting fail to deliver on an imaginative beginning. Despite offering some amusing moments, the author gives little depth to his motley cast of characters and wavers awkwardly between fable and satire.

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Twiggy reveals
Cross by James Patterson



James Patterson's Cross: For all the Alex Cross fans everyone wonders what happened to his wife Maria and who killed her. I absolutely loved the book and was pleased with Patterson, b/c I had been dissapointed with London Bridges."

From Booklist
Patterson's departure from the nursery-rhyme titles in his latest Alex Cross yarn is a tip-off that the focus this time is not so much on the case as on the man. For the first time in Patterson's 13-year-old series, we relive the day in 1993 when Cross' wife, Maria, was murdered. Alex was a young gun with the D.C. police then, and Maria was a social worker in the poorest and most dangerous section of the city before she became the victim of a drive-by shooting. Cut to the present, and Alex--who has been with the FBI for some time, become a successful crime writer, and started to lose a bit of that "dragon slayer" touch--decides to devote more time to his three kids, much to the delight of Nana Mama, Alex's nonagenarian three-in-one grandmother, nanny, and guiding light. Alex is nothing if not loyal, so when his former partner John Sampson asks him to help track down a sicko who is serially raping Georgetown coeds, Alex cannot say no. Little does he know, however, that the search for the rapist will have ties to Maria's death. That her killer was never found is a constant source of frustration for Alex, and this case offers a chance to finally put Maria's memory to rest. Even as the story whips by with incredible speed, Patterson manages to pack it full of suspense, emotion, and a resolution that, while perfectly satisfying, carries the author's trademark teaser hinting at the "more" that surely will come.

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Cheesy reveals
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See



Lily is haunted by memories–of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness.

In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu (“women’s writing”). Some girls were paired with laotongs, “old sames,” in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.

With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become “old sames” at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship.

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Butterfly-noir reveals
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos



from the back cover:
"I foresee that vengeance will move faster then love"

the complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make this book one of the most scandalous and controversial novels of European literature.
Its prime movers, Vimcont the Vlamont and Marqueise de Mertuille, gifted, wealthy and bored, form an unholy alliance and turn seduction in to a game - a game, which they must win. And they play whit such with and charm that its impossible not to admire them - until they discover that the game as mysteries rules that they cannot understand. In the insuing vicious battle there can be no winners and the innocence must suffer whit the guilty.

my review:
maybe you saw one of the movie adaptations, but they are far, far away from the cerebral sensuality of the book. its completely evolving, sensuous, wicked sometimes a little disturbing, but the more far the villains went on there schemes, the more I loved them and felled into the story. its important to say that the book is completely written in form of letters, it was presented as a compilation of real letters when it was first published and the author being a false name it is easy to understand the scandal it brought to the French court.

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Camis reveals
The Righteous Men by Sam Bourne



A series of murders as ar apart as the backstreets of New York, the crowded slums of India and the pristine beaches of Cape Town can't be connected. Can they?

Rookie New York Times reporter Will Monroe thinks not - until his beautiful wife Beth is kidnapped. The men holding her seem ready to kill without hesitation.

Desperate, Will follows a sinister trail that leads to a mysterious cult - fanatical followers of one of the world's oldest religions - right on his own doorstep. Now he must unravel ancient prophecies and riddles buried deep in the Bible to find a secret worth killing ofr, a secret on which teh fate of humanity may depend. But with more victims dying every hour and each clue wrapped in layers of code, time is running out...

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Breeze reveals
Georgia Nicolson series by Louise Rennison

I had a hard time deciding what to offer because I thought that most of my favorite reads were pretty popular books that most people would have already read. I decided to picked the Georgia Nicolson series by Louise Rennison as my favorite read of 2006 because they had me laughing out loud, so hard, so often! Georgia is such a evil, spoiled teenagers, but she and her friends come up with the most hilarious names for everything - people, objects, subjects at school and body parts..... Even the glossary at the back of every book is filled with her quirky humour. If you want a good laugh, this is where you'll find it!

So far, there are 7 in the series, but for your reading pleasure, I got my hands on the first three at a boxing day sale with gift cards!

* Angus, thongs, and full-frontal snogging
* On the bright side, I'm now the girlfriend of a sex god
* Knocked out by my nunga-nungas

**FYI: Some of these titles have different names in the US and Europe....



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Kyri reveals
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik



From Publishers Weekly
In this delightful first novel, the opening salvo of a trilogy, Novik seamlessly blends fantasy into the history of the Napoleonic wars. Here be dragons, beasts that can speak and reason, bred for strength and speed and used for aerial support in battle. Each nation has its own breeds, but none are so jealously guarded as the mysterious dragons of China. Veteran Capt. Will Laurence of the British Navy is therefore taken aback after his crew captures an egg from a French ship and it hatches a Chinese dragon, which Laurence names Temeraire. When Temeraire bonds with the captain, the two leave the navy to sign on with His Majesty's sadly understaffed Aerial Corps, which takes on the French in sprawling, detailed battles that Novik renders with admirable attention to 19th-century military tactics. Though the dragons they encounter are often more fully fleshed-out than the stereotypical human characters, the author's palpable love for her subject and a story rich with international, interpersonal and internal struggles more than compensate. (Apr.)


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Is there anything more to say about dragons? Stalwart presences in myth and fantasy, they've hoarded gold, incinerated villages, been slain by countless heroes and (sing it with me) "frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee." After the enormous popularity of the teen wunderkind Christopher Paolini's "Inheritance" series, even the subgenre of dragon-as-noble-steed seems as if it should be played out. Certainly, no one needs any more fantastical medieval theme parks, full of dragons and swords and sorcerers all doing their bit to get the ring or crown the lost king or save the elf damsel or finish off whatever heroic quest their hack creator has set for them.
So all hail Naomi Novik for seizing on an entirely different set of literary conventions for her fantasy debut -- the dashing Brits-on-ships genre perfected by Patrick O'Brian. In His Majesty's Dragon, Novik plunks her scaly beasts into the Napoleonic Wars, as members of the Aerial Corps, air cover for the beleaguered Royal Navy as it fends off a French invasion.

The novel begins when the H.M.S. Reliant captures a French ship carrying a dragon egg that is primed to hatch. A substantial prize, it puts Laurence -- the Reliant's captain -- and his officers -- gentlemen and aspiring gentlemen -- in a difficult position: One of them must become the creature's rider when it hatches. The prize then would become a deadweight, bringing to an end "any semblance of ordinary life. . . . An aviator could not easily manage any sort of estate, nor raise a family, nor go into society to any real extent." For the one chosen by the hatchling (and a dragon won't let just anyone harness him), it would mean "the wreck of his career." Naturally, it is the heroic Capt. Laurence whom the dragon picks.

And who is this dragon? "A pure, untinted black from nose to tail . . . [with] large, six-spined wings like a lady's fan," he is a Celestial, a Chinese dragon bred for emperors alone. Laurence names him Temeraire, and it's Novik's characterization of the dragon, who speaks in perfect 19th-century English, that makes the book hum. No ancient wisdom for him, just a voracious intelligence that demands bedtime readings on such subjects as mineralogy (dragons do like gems, you know) and historic battles.

Novik gets Temeraire's tone just right: slightly petulant when he doesn't get his way but innocently curious and eager to please. Laurence's relationship to him is like that of a parent with a child, a bemused parent with an enormous, precocious child. Soon they are heading north to Scotland to be inducted into the "wild, outrageous libertinage" of the Air Corps, where traditional social classes break down. Indeed, one of Laurence's greatest shocks is that women also fight with the Corps, unavoidable when some dragon breeds will only accept female riders. This makes life interesting for Laurence, who had to break off an unofficial engagement to a well-born woman when Temeraire chose him.

In Loch Laggan, Laurence and Temeraire also discover that battle on dragonback is much like that aboard ship -- a crew of about a dozen straps on to the dragon, armed with guns and swords and grappling hooks for boarding enemy beasts. (And it is here that Novik channels O'Brian most faithfully: No matter how brutal the fighting, commands are always concluded with an "if you please, Mr. Such-and-so.") Inevitably, Laurence and Temeraire get a chance to test their mettle in battle; Napoleon has a diabolical plan that must be thwarted. I won't spoil the ending, but Temeraire and Laurence acquit themselves well, as does Novik in the gripping combat scenes. Here's hoping that the next two books in the series -- the just published Throne of Jade and Black Powder War -- contain the same generous dollop of intelligent derring-do as this first, most original of dragon books.

Cats-eye reveals:

“Astonishing Splashes of Colour”, by Clare Morrall



Astonishing Splashes of Colour takes its title from J.M. Barrie's description of Peter Pan's Neverland. It follows the life of Kitty Maitland, a woman, who, in a sense, has never grown up. She lives an improvised life reviewing children's books, visiting her husband in the apartment next door, and fostering a growing obsession to replace her lost child.

Kitty's appealing personality drives this novel, as she relates her story in a jumbled state of consciousness. Her moods swing dramatically from high to low and are illuminated by an unusual ability to interpret people and emotions through color.

Kitty struggles to uncover the secrets of her childhood from her father and brothers, but their revelations threaten to overwhelm her tenuous hold on reality, leaving the reader feeling both sympathetic and horrified with her journey into madness.

3 1/2 of 4 stars (30 reviews) on Amazon.co.uk
Shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker prize

darn.
nvm :bash: :bash:

Gods in Alabama
by Joshilyn Jackson



From Publishers Weekly
Arlene Fleet, the refreshingly imperfect heroine of Jackson's frank, appealing debut, launches her story with a list of the title's deities: "high school quarterbacks, trucks, big tits, and also Jesus." The first god, also a date rapist by the name of Jim Beverly, she left dead in her hometown of Possett, Ala., but the last she embraces wholeheartedly when high school graduation allows her to flee the South, the murder and her slutty reputation for a new life in Chicago. Upon leaving home, Arlene makes a bargain with God, promising to forgo sex, lies and a return home if he keeps Jim's body hidden. After nine years in Chicago as a truth-telling celibate, an unexpected visitor from home (in search of Jim Beverly) leads her to believe that God is slipping on his end of the deal. As Arlene heads for the Deep South with her African-American boyfriend, Burr, in tow, her secrets unfold in unsurprising but satisfying flashbacks. Jackson brings levity to familiar themes with a spirited take on the clichés of redneck Southern living: the Wal-Mart culture, the subtle and overt racism and the indignant religion. The novel concludes with a final, dramatic disclosure, though the payoff isn't the plot twist but rather Jackson's genuine affection for the people and places of Dixie.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Critics agree that Jackson has scored big in her first outing, a comic novel that combines salty blue-collar humor with an engaging first-person voice. Jackson navigates through what could have become clichés of Southern types and instead offers memorable, often humorous characters and situations that keep the story humming along. The author also has a few surprises up her sleeve when it comes to plot and character, including moral ambiguity. Don’t expect Jackson’s debut novel to end like the usual "coming home" story or mistake it for just another "chick-lit" offering.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Marlene's Reveal

The Moonlit Cage By Linda Holeman



Enthralling, unusual and richly textured, The Moonlit Cage is a novel you will never forget.

It is the story of two people as extraordinary as the Victorian age they lived through. Daryâ is the brutalised but courageous young wife of an Afghan tribesman. She is a cursed woman, married under false pretences, for she is unable to bear children. But more awful than her barrenness is the punishment she will face when her husband discovers Daryâ's curse. Knowing she must flee or he will kill her, Daryâ escapes.

David Ingram is an enigmatic Englishman, traveling in Afghanistan. Although he is a stranger to Daryâ, he is also the only man who can help her. He saves her life and, for reasons of his own, eventually offers to take her back to England with him.

With David by her side, Daryâ embarks upon the journey of a lifetime — one that takes her from the unforgiving valleys and mountains of her homeland to 1850s London, the heart of the mighty British Empire. And there Daryâ finds herself in an equally difficult position: can a girl who has navigated her way across the cruel landscape of the Northwest Frontier face what might be most perilous of all — the polite society of Victorian London?

The Moonlit Cage is a story of love, loss and redemption that will possess the senses to the very last page.

This was one of my favourite reads of 2006.
I discovered this author when I bought her first book The Linnet Bird by accident :)
I am so glad I did because I loved that book. (Gave it to my mom and she is also in love with it)

This is her second book for adults and it does have some connections with book 1, but you can read it without having read The Linnet Bird.
It felt like I was there.

zzz reveals
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell



Frequent Booker Prize nominee (this book has been longlisted for
Booker Prize 2006!) Mitchell has left behind complicated literary
constructions for this beautiful, stripped-down coming-of-age story.
Our 13-year-old narrator, Jason Taylor, lives in Worcestershire's
Black Swan Green with his sister and his parents. Jason suffers from a
stammer, and in order to keep above the bottom rung of the social
ladder, he must go to extravagant lengths to avoid using stammer words
(some days those that start with N, other days, S). And
he must live in the wake of his brilliant sister and mediate between
his parents. The anxieties and excitements of boyhood are captured
extraordinarily well here. Some will argue that Jason doesn't sound 13
(he certainly has, per day, a lot more arrestingly beautiful thoughts
than does your average 13-year-old), but the narrative voice is
consistent, and readers will come to believe it. Indeed, it is
Mitchell's brilliant ability to reproduce internal monologue that
makes this story so mesmerizing. He reproduces Jason's inner life with
such astonishing verisimilitude that readers will find themselves
haunted by him long after turning the last page.

This is amazingly beautiful novel! The last I've read in 2006 but I
still re-reading it. This book is so witty, smart, funny written in
such a beautiful style … I could actually feel the pain of boyhood. On
the other hand I could identify myself with Jason so easily … it seems
that problems of teenage boys are universal.

But I have to write one part from the book which made me SO happy!

Translations are incourteous between Europeans! […]Ackkk, for your
schoolmasters, for your minister of education, execution is too good!
Is not even arrogance! […] You English, you deserve that the
government of Monster Thatcher! I curse you with twenty years of
Thatchers! Maybe then you comprehend, speaking one language
only is prison![…]

I felt so poor, so imprisoned until I suddenly realized that
book I'm reading is not in my mother tongue! It probably sounds silly
but in that moment I realized the greatness of ability to read/speak
in three languages :)

Anyway … (apart from that) fabulous book indeed!!!
FYI=this is ARC!

NW reveals
Two Weeks with the Queen by Morris Gleitzman



Description:

Dear Your Majesty The Queen,

I need to speak to you urgently about my brother Luke. He's got cancer and
the doctors in Australia are being really slack. If I could borrow your top
doctor for a few days I know he/she would fix things up in no time. Of
course Mum and Dad would pay his/her fares even if it meant selling the car
or getting a loan. Please contact me at the above address urgently.

Yours sincerely,
Colin Mudford

PS This is not a hoax. Ring the above number and Aunty Iris will tell you.
Hang up if a man answers.

If you want something done properly - go straight to the top! Getting the
Queen to help won't be easy. But if she can't help - who can?

"One of the best books I've ever read. I wish I had written it."
-- Paula Danziger

(PS from zzz:
I'm not sure about cover art... NW?)

chronic reveals
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls




Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever

Morsie's reveal:

Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu



In the northern Ooni Kingdom, fear of the unknown runs deep, and
children born dada are rumored to have special powers.
Thirteen-year-old Zahrah Tsami feels like a normal girl she grows her
own flora computer, has mirrors sewn onto her clothes, and stays clear
of the Forbidden Greeny Jungle. But unlike other children in the
village of Kirki, Zahrah was born with the telling dadalocks. Only her
best friend, Dari, isn't afraid of her, even when something unusual
begins happening something that definitely makes Zahrah different. The
two friends determine to investigate, edging closer and closer to
danger. When Dari's life is threatened, Zahrah must face her worst
fears alone, including the very thing that makes her different. In
this exciting debut novel by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, things aren't
always what they seem -- monkeys tell fortunes, plants offer wisdom,
and a teenage girl is the only one who stands a chance at saving her
best friend's life.

Read my review!

Karine reveals
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie



One of my favorite books of 2006 is the incredible Purple Hbiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

By turns luminous and horrific, this debut ensnares the reader from the first page and lingers in the memory long after its tragic end. First-person narrator Kambili Achike is a 15-year-old Nigerian girl growing up in sheltered privilege in a country ravaged by political strife and personal struggle. She and her brother, Jaja, and their quiet mother, who speaks "the way a bird eats, in small amounts," live this life of luxury because Kambili's father is a wealthy man who owns factories, publishes a politically outspoken newspaper and outwardly leads the moral, humble life of a faithful Catholic. The many grateful citizens who have received his blessings and material assistance call him omelora, "The One Who Does for the Community." Yet Kambili, Jaja and their mother see a side to their provider no one else does: he is also a religious fanatic who regularly and viciously beats his family for the mildest infractions of his interpretation of an exemplary Christian life. The children know better than to discuss their home life with anyone else; "there was so much that we never told." But when they are unexpectedly allowed to visit their liberated and loving Aunty Ifeoma, a widowed university professor raising three children, family secrets and tensions bubble dangerously to the surface, setting in motion a chain of events that allow Kambili to slowly blossom as she begins to question the authority of the precepts and adults she once held sacred. In a soft, searing voice, Adichie examines the complexities of family, faith and country through the haunted but hopeful eyes of a young girl on the cusp of womanhood. Lush, cadenced and often disconcerting, this is an accomplished first effort.

Purple-pixie's reveal:



The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood:

The eponymous hero of The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud is a good boy; an American teenager who works hard at school, is good at sport and loves his mum and his little brother Sam. And then one terrible day, tragically, he finds himself responsible for Sam's death. Charlie dies too for a brief moment but is brought back to life by the skill of a paramedic. From that moment on, Charlie makes a sacrificial decision to live his life in the past. Until that is, he meets tough but beautiful yachtswoman Tess and he has to rethink life and death.
Ben Sherwood's novel is an unusual love story set against a background of bereavement and grief. Sherwood is a former TV news producer and journalist so not surprisingly this, his second novel, is perfectly well written, has attractive characters and a compelling story line.

My book is THE YEAR OF PLEASURES by Elizabeth Berg



From Back Cover:

Bette Nolan moves to a small town after the death of her husband to try to begin anew. Pursuing a dream of a different kind of life, she is determined to find pleasure in her simple daily routines. Among those who help her in both expected and unexpected ways are the ten-year-old boy next door, three wild women friends from her college days, a twenty-year-old who is struggling to find his place in the world, and a handsome man who is ready for love.

In this rich and deeply satisfying novel, a resilient woman embarks upon an unforgettable journey of adventure, self-discovery, and renewal and comes to appreciate the solace found in ordinary pleasures.

Yourotherleft reveals

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy




A provocative transformation of the classic fairy tale into a haunting survival story set in Poland during WWII, Murphy's second novel (after The Sea Within) is darkly enchanting. Two Jewish children, a girl of 11 and her seven-year-old brother, are left to wander the woods after their father and stepmother are forced to abandon them, frantically begging them never to say their Jewish names, but to identify themselves as Hansel and Gretel. In an imaginative reversal of the original tale, they encounter a small woman named Magda, known as a "witch" by villagers, who risks her life in harboring them. The story alternates between the children's nightmarish adventures, and their parents' struggle for survival and hope for a safe reunion. This mirror image of the fairy tale is deliberately disorienting, as Murphy describes the horrors of the outside world compared with the haven inside Magda's hut, and the fear and anguish of the other people who conspire to save the children and protect their own families, too. The naive siblings are only half-conscious of much of this, though they are perfectly aware of their peril should they be discovered. The graphic details-the physical symptoms of near starvation, the infestations of lice, the effects of bitter cold-make it plain that this is the grimmest kind of fable. Eventually, the Nazis indulge in wholesale slaughter, and the children barely survive, hiding and on the run. No reader who picks up this inspiring novel will put it down until the final pages, in which redemption is not a fairy tale ending but a heartening message of hope.

Mellonhead's Reveal:

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

In his journal, John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book", and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families -- the Trasks and the Hamiltons -- whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new, rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives, nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness, enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.

Fam's Reveal



The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen

[doHTML]
Download Description
<p>The bestselling author of <I>The Surgeon</I> returns -- and so does that chilling novel's diabolical villain. Though held behind bars, Warren Hoyt still haunts a helpless city, seeming to bequeath his evil legacy to a student all-too-diligent... and all-too-deadly.</p><P>It is a boiling hot Boston summer. Adding to the city's woes is a series of shocking crimes, in which wealthy men are made to watch while their wives are brutalized. A sadistic demand that ends in abduction and death.</p><P>The pattern suggests one man: serial killer Warren Hoyt, recently removed from the city's streets. Police can only assume an acolyte is at large, a maniac basing his attacks on the twisted medical techniques of the madman he so admires. At least that's what Detective Jane Rizzoli thinks. Forced again to confront the killer who scarred her -- literally and figuratively -- she is determined to finally end Hoyt's awful influence... even if it means receiving more resistance from her all-male homicide squad.</p><P>But Rizzoli isn't counting on the U.S. government's sudden interest. Or on meeting Special Agent Gabriel Dean, who knows more than he will tell. Most of all, she isn't counting on becoming a target herself, once Hoyt is suddenly free, joining his mysterious blood brother in a vicious vendetta....</p><P>Filled with superbly created characters -- and the medical and police procedural details that are her trademark -- <I>The Apprentice</I> is Tess Gerritsen at her brilliant best. Set in a stunning world where evil is easy to learn and hard to end, this is a thriller by a master who could teach other authors a thing or two.</p>[/doHTML]

Sunny reveals
The Absence of Nectar by Kathy Hepinstall



The Absence of Nectar is the story of two East Texas siblings, 14-year-old Boone and his 11-year-old sister Alice, our narrator. They are opposites, Alice fierce and untrusting, Boone gentle and saintly. These contrary (but inseparable) siblings love their own opposites from afar. Alice pines for a shy, sickly neighbor boy, while Boone sends lovesick letters about God to Persely Snow, poisoner of her own parents and infamous mental institution escape artist. (Hepinstall has a sweet touch here with early adolescent courtship. Tiny letters printed under a stamp: "I want to meet you. I have Ding Dongs.")

But the adults who should care for these children are vanished or toxic: the gentle father who unforgivably abandons them; the dreamy, ineffectual mother they call Meg, a beekeeper whose colonies have died, unable to live without a man; and worst, Simon Jester, the terrifying stepfather Meg thrusts into their lives.

Alectoness's Reveal

History of Love
by Nicole Krauss



From Amazon.com:

This extraordinary, heartbreaking novel is truly a history of love: a tale brimming with laughter, passion, and soaring imaginative power. Nicole Krauss's novel features some of the most memorable characters to be seen in contemporary fiction. Leo Gursky who opens the book is an elderly curmudgeon eking out an existence in New York, full of hopeful memories from his childhood and dreams about love and what he has lost. Meanwhile Alma, a young teenager, is trying to find a solution to her mother’s loneliness and takes several eccentric paths on her quest to bring happiness back to her family.

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This was definitely one of my favourites from 2006... and pretty high up on my all-time list as well.