* Revealed Books *

My reveal is...



The Girls by Lori Lansens

Meet Rose and Ruby: sisters, best friends, confidantes, and conjoined twins.

Since their birth, Rose and Ruby Darlen have been known simply as "the girls." They make friends, fall in love, have jobs, love their parents, and follow their dreams. But the Darlens are special. Now nearing their 30th birthday, they are history's oldest craniopagus twins, joined at the head by a spot the size of a bread plate.

When Rose, the bookish sister, sets out to write her autobiography, it inevitably becomes the story of her short but extraordinary life with Ruby, the beautiful one. From their awkward first steps--Ruby's arm curled around Rose's neck, her foreshortened legs wrapped around Rose's hips--to the friendships they gradually build for themselves in the small town of Leaford, this is the profoundly affecting chronicle of an incomparable life journey.

As Rose and Ruby's story builds to an unforgettable conclusion, Lansens aims at the heart of human experience--the hardship of loss and struggles for independence, and the fundamental joy of simply living a life. This is a breathtaking novel, one that no reader will soon forget, a heartrending story of love between sisters.

I chose this book as one of my top reads for 2007 because it's a beautifully done story which does so many things so well: it makes you forget that there's anything unusual about these two remarkable women; it explores the concept of loving someone in so many different ways; it is wonderfully written, deeply touching and often quite funny; and it does all these things without once becoming maudlin, sappy or contrived. I read 110 books in 2007, and out of all of them, this was probably my favourite and the one that touched me the most.

I originally read this book as part of a (still moving) bookring; look here to see what others have thought of it so far...

Cheriepie's reveal

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<a href="http://books.cheriepie.com/2007/02/12-black-lipstick-kisses-by-monica.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41BWlUD35CL._SL320_SH20_.jpg" height="320" width="191" border="0" align="left" hspace="15" vspace="10" alt="Black Lipstick Kisses - Read full review at my blog" title="Read full review at my blog" /></a>

<p align="center"><b><font size="4" face="century gothic, verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#cc0000">Black Lipstick Kisses</font> by Monica Belle</font></b></p>

<p><i>It was not my first time in a cemetery at night, by any means. I'd often wandered in the moonlight between the stones and tombs, letting my senses fill with emotion. This time it was different; my overriding sense was not one of melancholy or peace but a strange, malign humour—frightening and arousing, too. As my heart gradually slowed, and my fear of being caught died away, I was seized with an urge to be naked. More than that—naked in rude, blatantly sexual positions.</i></p> <p>Sultry and mischievous Goth princess Angela McKie loves dressing up in fetish clothing inspired by Victorian decadence. Perfecting an air of occult sexiness, she enjoys teasing men to distraction. She attracts the lustful attentions of two very different people: Stephen Byrne is a serious young politician with a bright future; Michael Merrick is a cartoonist for a Gothic horror comic. Both want her, and set out to get her, but quickly discover they have bitten off more than they can chew when they allow themselves to be seduced by the maverick Ms McKie.</p> <p>I gave this book a full 10 out of 10 stars! You can read my full review <a href="http://books.cheriepie.com/2007/02/12-black-lipstick-kisses-by-monica.html" target="_blank">in this entry at my blog</a>.</p>
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Sunny's reveal



Berlin 1942 - when Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance. But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

Flicki's reveal:



Here you can find the journal entry!

Boogal's reveal:



The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory

A young woman caught in the rivalry between Queen Mary and her half sister, Elizabeth, must find her true destiny amid treason, poisonous rivalries, loss of faith, and unrequited love.
It is winter, 1553. Pursued by the Inquisition, Hannah Green, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, is forced to flee Spain with her father. But Hannah is no ordinary refugee. Her gift of "Sight," the ability to foresee the future, is priceless in the troubled times of the Tudor court. Hannah is adopted by the glamorous Robert Dudley, the charismatic son of King Edward's protector, who brings her to court as a "holy fool" for Queen Mary and, ultimately, Queen Elizabeth. Hired as a fool but working as a spy; promised in wedlock but in love with her master; endangered by the laws against heresy, treason, and witchcraft, Hannah must choose between the safe life of a commoner and the dangerous intrigues of the royal family that are inextricably bound up in her own yearnings and desires.

Teeming with vibrant period detail and peopled by characters seamlessly woven into the sweeping tapestry of history, The Queen's Fool is another rich and emotionally resonant gem from this wonderful storyteller.

Review at the BookCrossing journal page

Brat's reveal:

I decided on a 2-fer for this. It just didn't seem right to use only half of a set. Besides, they were both awesome, edge of your seat, keep you guessing books!!

Retribution by Jilliane Hoffman



Blond, beautiful law student Chloe Larson is looking forward to a great future with successful New York businessman Michael Decker. Her expectations are shattered forever after a madman in a clown mask rapes and tortures her until she is near death. She survives physically, but psychologically slips into an extended mental breakdown. Twelve years later she's dyed her hair mousy brown and become unassuming, hardworking C.J. Townsend, assistant chief of the Miami Dade State Attorney's office. A suspiciously lucky break nets serial killer suspect William Bantling, and C.J. takes over the prosecution as part of her normal workload. When Bantling stands up in court and speaks, C.J. realizes he's the man who raped her years ago. C.J. learns that the statute of limitations has run out on her rape and that her involvement in that case might very well cause Bantling to be freed on a technicality. Love interest Special Agent Dominick Falconetti knows there is something seriously wrong as C.J.'s mental state begins to deteriorate, but she brushes off his concern and immerses herself in her work on the case. The far-fetched resolution will throw some readers, but Hoffman compensates with a compellingly horrific villain and an undeniably exciting final confrontation.

Last Witness by Jilliane Hoffman (Sequel to Retribution)



Truth and justice collide in former prosecutor Hoffman's sequel to Retribution. Miami Assistant State Attorney C.J. Townsend finds herself living a nightmare, beginning with a call to go to the homicide scene of Victor Chavez, a cop who helped her convict serial killer William Bantling. Chavez's body has been mutilated, his tongue twisted into what a former DEA officer calls the "Colombian necktie." Early clues to this and subsequent, equally brutal, murders point to Florida's drug underworld, but Townsend's fiancé, Special Agent Dominick Falconetti, and his team track the case back to Bantling. Falconetti is arrested for assaulting the ever-taunting Bantling, but even with the lead detective off the investigation, troubling facts emerge, while Townsend, haunted by her role in Bantling's trial (she withheld evidence to put the man who raped her on death row), tries to distance herself. Instead, she must confront her torturer in court, putting her career, her relationship and eventually her life at risk. Reminders of fictional predecessors (Bantling in Hannibal Lecter restraints, Townsend's Dirty Harriet heroics) and occasional uninspired romantic passages are Hoffman's weakness; procedural detail and methodical depiction of the horrific are her strength. She combines the gruesome precision of Patricia Cornwell, the courtroom savvy of Linda Fairstein and the Miami setting of Edna Buchanan to produce an unsettling tale that, unlike most detective fiction, is not neatly tied up at the end.(Leaving room for a possible 3rd book?)

Giz's reveal:



The Book of Dave by Will Self

Book Description
The Book of Dave is a misogynistic, racist, homophobic rant, written by a demented London cabbie, buried in November 2001 in the Hampstead garden of his hated ex-wife and addressed to the son he idealizes rather than fathers.

Several centures pass and, as sea levels rise, the only land left in central London becomes the isolated isle of Ham. There, the Six Families scratch a meagre living from the land. Their lives, however, are full of religion. For Dave's book has been disinterred and transformed into Holy Scripture. The peasants know his text by heart. The doctrines of Breakup and Changeover are rigid and absolute. Only one islander, Symun, remains incredulous. Rather than finding certainty in the Book and its Knowledge, he finds only questions. Desperate to discover answers, Symun embarks on an epic journey into the Forbidden Zone, and eventually to the terrifying heart of New London ...

Big, bold and dazzlingly inventive, Will Self's fifth novel is at once a profound meditation upon the nature of revealed religion, a love story, a caustic satire of contemporary urban life and a historical detective story set in the far future. A gripping read from start to finish, it proves there is at least one contemporary novelist prepared to take on the grand themes in the grand manner.

WHY?
I chose this book for the swap because it was my single most favourite book of the year - it really stood head and shoulders about the next best - and I didn't expect to like it at all! I've not read a great deal of Self, I find him a little irritating and smug but this book - well it blew me away. It's not easy to read, but it's well worth the effort. I originally bought it for zzz for Ballyswappers - I was trying to find a book I thought he would like and I wouldn't totally hate :lol: and I ended up with a copy in my PC and now another copy for this swap too!

msjoanna's reveal:

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion



From Booklist
*Starred Review* Didion--a master essayist, great American novelist, and astute political observer--uses autobiography as a vehicle for tonic inquiries into both the self and society. In Where I Was From (2003), she meshed family history with an examination of America's romance with the West. Here, in her most personal and generous book to date, she chronicles a year of grief with her signature blend of intellectual rigor and deep feeling. The ordeal began on Christmas 2003 when Didion and her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, learn that their daughter, Quintana Roo, is in intensive care with severe pneumonia and septic shock. Five grim days later, Dunne and Didion come home from the hospital, sit down to dinner, and Dunne suffers "a sudden massive coronary event" and dies. Married for 40 years and sharing a passion for literature, they were inordinately close. But Didion could not give herself over to grief: Quintana's health went from bad to worse as she developed a life-threatening hematoma on her brain. She survived, and Didion had the wherewithal to cope: "In times of trouble, I had been trained since childhood, read, learn, work it up, go the literature. Information was control." So she researches grief, schools herself in her daughter's medical conditions, and monitors the flux of flashbacks and fears that strobe through her mind. Didion describes with compelling precision exactly how grief feels, and how it impairs rational thought and triggers "magical thinking." The result is a remarkably lucid and ennobling anatomy of grief, matched by a penetrating tribute to marriage, motherhood, and love.

------------------------------------

As is required for this swap, I adored this book. It was actually one of the first books I read in 2007, but it stayed with me as a favorite since then. It was a close call between this book and the book I'm using as my reveal in the Non-genre Swap this month (which was, incidentally, one of the last books I read in 2007). This is probably one of the most honest books that I've ever read and conveyed the feelings of loss and grief perfectly. I really enjoyed it and am so happy to be able to find it a new home through this swap.

As an aside, this actual copy was a gift to me from my mother, which made me especially want to be sure the book went to someone who would really like to read it and not just left out in the wild. That's actually why I still have it -- I've been trying to figure out how to pass it along. This swap is perfect.

Sidney's reveal:

lmn60's reveal:



Easter Island: by Jennifer Vanderbes

This one was sent to me as a RABCK by Erishkigal. And what a wonderful gift it was! So far I have loaned it to three other friends and all have raved about it... so now it's time to share it with some bookcrossing/bookobsessed friends!

Book Description from Publishers Weekly

Restrained passion and conflicted loyalties drive this sweeping debut novel, in which two women of different eras experience the mysteries of Easter Island. In 1912, Elsa Pendleton's father dies and leaves her to care for her 19-year-old sister, Alice, who is beautiful but not quite right in the head. To secure their position, 22-year-old Elsa marries Edward Beazley, a contemporary of her father's who is an anthropologist with the Royal Geographical Society in England. They travel to Easter Island, where Edward plans to study the giant moai sculptures, and Elsa finds herself immersed in a new and harsh culture. As she contends with revelations concerning her husband and her sister, she befriends the native islanders and becomes engrossed in unlocking the meaning of the symbols she finds on wooden tablets. In a parallel narrative, Greer Farraday, a young American botanist recovering from a disastrous marriage to an older professor, arrives on the island in 1973 to uncover the mystery of the island's lack of native trees. One of Greer's fellow island researchers is Vicente Portales, a cryptographer attempting to interpret the rongorongo tablets and breech Greer's defenses. As Elsa and Greer's stories play out in alternating sections, a third element is intertwined: the tale of Graf Von Spee, the German admiral who led his ill-fated fleet across the South Pacific at the outbreak of World War I. Vanderbes knows how to craft suspense, and the narratives-while packed with vivid historical and scientific detail-move forward on the strength of her fully realized characters. When the connection between Elsa and Greer is revealed, it illuminates the novel. Like the overcast skies of Easter Island, this impressive debut is rich in shades of gray: meteorological, scientific, intellectual and emotional.

Boogal wants Camis's reveal


A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini



Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry the troubled and bitter Rasheed, who is thirty years her senior. Nearly two decades later, in a climate of growing unrest, tragedy strikes fifteen-year-old Laila, who must leave her home and join Mariam's unhappy household. Laila and Mariam are to find consolation in each other, their friendship to grow as deep as the bond between sisters, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. With the passing of time comes Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the women's endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. In the end, it is love that triumphs over death and destruction. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is an unforgettable portrait of a wounded country and a deeply moving story of family and friendship. It is a beautiful, heart-wrenching story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond and an indestructible love

Catsalive's reveal:



No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub by Virginia Ironside

"Certainly not!" said Marie Sharp, when a friend suggests she join a bookclub when she turns sixty. "Bookclub people always seem to have to wade through Captain Corelli's Mandolin or, groan, The God of Small Things. They feel they've forever got to poke their brain with a pointed stick to keep it working. But either you've got a lively brain or you haven't. And anyway, I don't want to be young and stimulated any more. Those oldies who spend their lives bicycling across Mongolia at eighty and para-gliding at ninety, aren't brilliant specimens of old age. No, they're just tragic failures who haven't come to terms with aging. I want to start doing old things, not young things."

Too young to get whisked away by a Stannah Stairlift, or to enjoy the luxury of a walk-in bath (but not so much that she doesn't enjoy comfortable shoes), Marie is, all the same, getting on in years - and she's thrilled about it! She's a bit preoccupied about whether to give up sex - "Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" - but there are compensations, like falling in love all over again - but this time with her baby grandson, Gene.

Curmudgeonly, acute, and funny, this fictionalised diary is what happens when grumpy old women meet Bridget Jones.

zzz reveals
The People's Act of Love by James Meek



First I must stress that if you're interested in reading this amazing novel try to avoid reading reviews on Amazon because they are full of spoilers!!!

This beautiful piece of historical fiction written in the best spirit of Russian classics is set in the coldest, isolated part of Siberia during the Russian Revolution. Place where common rules can’t be applied or can easily be neglected and therefore perfect (whatever that means) place to test your humane values and scruples.

I’ve read somewhere one comment about the book as if ”Anna Karenina meets Silence of the Lambs” and that’s pretty much true with the difference that somehow you feel oddly sympathetic with “this” Hannibal Lecter probably because he is breathtakingly convincing (and therefore much scary). His mission is so pure that you’re finding yourself how you almost ignoring the methods; through his words it sounds perfectly right:

"…he’s a man so dedicated to the happiness of the future world that he sets himself to destroy all the corrupt and cruel functionaries he can; till he’s destroyed himself. He’s not a destroyer, he is destruction; to hold such a man to the same standards as ordinary man would be strange, like putting wolves on a trial for killing an elk, or trying to shoot the wind.”

And indeed you simply can’t apply the same standard not only to that specific character but (as I said above) to the whole place where the novel is set in. Because just imagine the question like this: “under what circumstances is eating another human being justifiable?” Is there an answer on that question at all? OK maybe if you think now about that horrible true story about plane crash in South American Andes where survivors had to eat pieces of their friends who didn’t survive the crash to stay alive I should reformulate question: “under what circumstances is killing and then eating another human being justifiable?”.
Other question that emerges is “How far are you ready to go in dedication yourself to the God?” and I assure you, if I tell you the answer you wouldn’t believe!

Read my full review (without spoilers) HERE

Marlene's reveal

The Diary of Mattie Spenser by Sandra Dallas



The buoyancy and simple, uncloying sweetness of spirit of Dallas's appealing protagonist--the young wife of a homesteader in Colorado Territory--give a bright, fresh shading to the tragedies and small sharp joys of 19th-century frontier life. Again, as in The Persian Pickle Club (1995), Dallas has caught the lilt and drift of regional speech. At 22, plain Mattie is astounded that handsome Luke Spenser desires to marry her--he has been keeping company with pretty Persia. Nonetheless, he chooses her, and they head out from Iowa in May 1865 to the homestead Luke has already planted in Colorado Territory. There are pleasures along the way: nice folks, and quiet days spent with Luke, her ``Darling Boy.'' But Luke, who doesn't smile at her jokes, works very hard and doesn't like her to flirt with him. As for the marital act: ``I still think it's overrated.'' Danger comes soon enough, and it's Mattie's quick shooting that saves two lives, although she doesn't seriously contradict Luke's dismissive observation that it was a ``lucky shot.'' Once they arrive in Colorado, though, Mattie is disappointed by the homestead (out on the plains, she finds, there is ``too much sky''). Her education in the real travails of people, particularly women, separated from the cushioning platitudes and quick-step judgments of home, begins immediately. A despised ``slattern'' proves herself a true friend; Mattie witnesses women weakened by too many births, another abused and horribly killed, and murder and torture by both whites and Indians. She also experiences wild joy and then tragedy, suffers many dangers, and is rocked by Luke's sudden betrayal. (``How could he ever again be my Darling Boy?'') Yet torment yields to endurance and a kind of compassion. Tragedies and sad little domestic dramas are muffled within the decency and humanity of a character whose understanding--but not essence--changes with events. A modest, appealing novel with a convincing reach into Colorado's plains and skies.

out of 65 reviews.


Why I picked this.
because I could not get any of my top 3 :rofl: (Books that I gave 10 stars) but this one I gave 9 stars.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Loved the way it was written. not everything was sugar and spies. It was an interesting read to see what women back in the days had to go through , it made me laugh, cry.
Highly recommend.

Xeyra's reveal:

A Dirty Job: A Novel
by Christopher Moore



Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death.

It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's gotta do it.

-------

I don't actually have a journal entry for this book but it was one of my favorites of last year. Beta Males (which the nerds to the Alpha Male jocks in "Revenge of the Nerds", as a reviewer on Amazon says) are very interesting creatures. And Christopher Moore is an incredibly funny writer.

Candy's reveal is



Lily has grown up believing she accidentally killed her mother when she was four. She not only has her own memory of holding the gun, but her father's account of the event. Now fourteen, she yearns for her mother, and for forgiveness. Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her father, she has only one friend: Rosaleen, a black servant whose sharp exterior hides a tender heart. South Carolina in the sixties is a place where segregation is still considered a cause worth fighting for. When racial tension explodes one summer afternoon, and Rosaleen is arrested and beaten, Lily is compelled to act. Fugitives from justice and from Lily's harsh and unyielding father, they follow a trail left by the woman who died ten years before. Finding sanctuary in the home of three beekeeping sisters, Lily starts a journey as much about her understanding of the world, as about the mystery surrounding her mother.

Rootmartin's reveal is

A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali by Gil Courtemanche



Book Description

A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is a moving, passionate love story set amid the turmoil and terror of Rwanda's genocide.
All manner of Kigali residents pass their time by the pool of the Mille-Collines hotel: aid workers, Rwandan bourgeoisie, expatriates, UN peacekeepers, prostitutes. Keeping a watchful eye is Bernard Valcourt, a jaded foreign journalist, but his closest attention is devoted to Gentille, a hotel waitress with the slender, elegant build of a Tutsi. As they slip into an intense, improbable affair, the delicately balanced world around them–already devastated by AIDS–erupts in a Hutu-led genocide against the Tutsi people. Valcourt's efforts to spirit Gentille to safety end in their separation. It will be months before he learns of his lover's shocking fate.

My reveal is:



Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
by John Grogan

Labrador retrievers are generally considered even-tempered, calm and reliable;and then there's Marley, arguably one of the world's worst dogs. Grogan, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and his wife, Jenny, were newly married and living in West Palm Beach when they decided that owning a dog would give them a foretaste of the parenthood they anticipated.

As a rule, I give my high marks to books that can make me both laugh and cry, and this book does so splendidly. Marley got kicked out of obedience school, he swallowed screws and gold necklaces. He was hyperactive, an embarrassment, but affectionate and totally lovable. The book is not just about a goofy dog, but about the author and his family, their passage in life, which makes it much more memorable in addition to the funny antics.

OKe pc probably ready on Saturday. I don't see any reveals I really want so I try to check or call later today

Bye :cry: :wave: :kiss:

My Reveal:



Black and White by Dani Shapiro

Clara Brodeur has spent her entire adult life pulling herself away from her famous mother, the renowned and controversial photographer Ruth Dunne, whose towering reputation rests on the unsettling nude portraits she took of her young daughter from the ages of three to fourteen. The Clara Series, which graced the walls of museums around the world as well as the pages of New York City tabloids that labeled the work pornographic, cast a long and inescapable shadow over its subject. At eighteen, when Clara might have entered university and begun to shape an identity beyond her sensationalized, unsought role in the New York art world, she fled to the quiet obscurity of small-town Maine, where she married and had a child, a daughter whom she has tried to shield from the central facts of her early life and her damaging role as her mother’s muse.

Fourteen years later, Ruth Dunne is dying, and Clara is summoned to her bedside. Despite her anguish and ambivalence about confronting a family life she has repressed and denied for more than a decade, Clara returns. She finds Ruth surrounded, even in her illness, by worshipful interns, protective assistants, and her conniving art dealer.

Once again, she is Clara Dunne, the object of curiosity, the girl in the photos. Except this time she has her own daughter to think about—a girl who at nine looks strikingly like the girl in Ruth’s photos—and she yearns to protect her, to insulate her from the exposure that will inevitably result when her two worlds, New York and Maine, collide.

As Clara charts a path connecting her childhood with her adult life, Shapiro’s novel weaves together past and present in images as stark and intense as the photographs that tore the Dunnes apart. A brilliant examination of motherhood—a novel that pits artistic inspiration against maternal obligation and asks whether the two can ever be fully reconciled—Black & White explores the limits and duties of family loyalties, and even of love. Gripping, haunting, psychologically complex, this is Shapiro at her captivating best.

My book is "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards




From the Publisher
On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret.
But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this beautifully told story that unfolds over a quarter of a century in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by the fateful decision made that long-ago winter night.
A brilliantly crafted, stunning debut, The Memory Keeper's Daughter explores the way life takes unexpected turns, and how the mysterious ties that hold a family together help us survive the heartache that occurs when long-buried secrets burst into the open.

luckaye's reveal:



Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

A language kept a secret for a thousand years forms the backdrop for an unforgettable novel of two Chinese women whose friendship and love sustains them through their lives.

This absorbing novel – with a storyline unlike anything Lisa See has written before – takes place in 19th century China when girls had their feet bound, then spent the rest of their lives in seclusion with only a single window from which to see. Illiterate and isolated, they were not expected to think, be creative, or have emotions. But in one remote county, women developed their own secret code, nu shu – "women's writing" – the only gender-based written language to have been found in the world. Some girls were paired as "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 windows to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.

An old woman tells of her relationship with her "old-same," their arranged marriages, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood—until a terrible misunderstanding written on their secret fan threatens to tear them apart. With the detail and emotional resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha , Snow Flower and the Secret Fan delves into one of the most mysterious and treasured relationships of all time—female friendship.

Cats-eye's Reveal:



"The True Story of Hansel and Gretel", by Louise Murphy

"The story has been told over and over by liars and it must be retold."

In the winter of 1943, on the outskirts of a dark forest, two Jewish children flee the Nazis with their father and stepmother. In a moment of desperation, the children are given the aliases Hansel and Gretel and sent alone into the woods to hide. Gretel leads her younger brother in search of food and protection, while Hansel leaves a trail of breadcrumbs behind so that their father might find them again.

So begins The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, which takes us along on their journey into a forest more ancient than man. In a landscape populated by exotic beasts, refugees, and revolutionaries, the two children embark upon a new life as Christian orphans, protected by a woman who is called Magda the witch and whose tiny hut is heated by an enormous baker's oven.

Combining classic themes of fairy tales and war literature, this haunting novel of journey and survival, of redemption and memory, powerfully depicts how war is experienced by families and especially by children, and tells a resonant, riveting story.

My reveal is:

Falling Angels by Barbara Gowdy
http://bookcrossing.com/journal/522163

From Publishers Weekly
Canadian writer Gowdy's ( Through the Green Valley ) second novel offers many satisfactions. Scrupulously and evocatively wrought, with fully formed characters, it poses but does not quite resolve an intriguing mystery rooted in character and fate. The book opens in 1969, at a funeral of a woman who either jumped or fell from the roof of her track house. The time frame then shifts to a decade earlier, when the woman's daughters discover that years before she had thrown or dropped an infant son over Niagara Falls. The girls--Norma, Lou and Sandy--are fascinated by this unknown sibling and by a parent who spends her life drunk, facing a TV, while the girls' father, a used-car salesman, maintains household order, such as it is. One Christmas, he promises a trip to Disneyland but instead builds, with Norma's help, a bomb shelter, and persuades the family to hole up in it for two weeks. The girls get through the fetid underground days by sipping from their mother's mug of whiskey, which their father keeps topped off. Through it all, the siblings create their own mechanisms for coping. Originally published in Canada to critical acclaim, this novel, a portion of which appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1989 , brilliantly celebrates the bonding that occurs even in dysfunctional families.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Disenchanted eccentrics wending their way through eerie situations seem to be the dominant theme in most of the postmodern "new fiction." Troublesome as these forays into nihilism's gloomy landscapes are, an effective work of new fiction is as bracing as a dive into a chilly pond, offering more than a few surprises with its odd meld of quirky characters and wickedly audacious scenes. Gowdy's is one such dark gem of a novel. Through a series of vignettes it charts the lives of the Field family, recounting bouts of alcoholism, neglect, and verbal abuse. A story otherwise laden with sad escapades, Fallen Angels remains lively throughout because of the inventiveness and strength of its main characters: Lou, Norma, and Sandy. These three unfortunate sisters will amaze readers with their ability to endure the many traumas of childhood and adolescence, despite the antics of their even more unfortunate parents. This coming-of-age novel is not likely to appeal to those who wear a shield of optimism.
-Lauren Bielski,"Printing News"
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The Confessions of Max Tivoli



From amazon.ca:
Max Tivoli has aged backwards: born in San Francisco in 1871 looking like a 70-year-old man, he's now nearly 60 and looks 11. Other than this "deformity," the defining feature of Max's life is his epic love for Alice Levy, whom he meets when they are both teens (though he looks 53). Max's middle-aged gentility endears him to Alice's mother and, like an innocent Humbert Humbert, he allows Mrs. Levy to seduce him so that he might be near his love. When he steals a kiss from Alice, the Levys flee. But heartbroken Max gets another chance: when he encounters Alice years later, she does not recognize him, and he lies shamelessly and repeatedly to be near her again. Max's parents, whose marriage is itself another story of Old San Francisco, have advised him to "be what they think you are," and he usually is. But his lifelong friend Hughie Dempsey knows Max's secret, and is intimately connected to the story that unfolds, via Max's written "confessions," in small, explosive revelations. "We are each the love of someone's life," Max begins; it is the implications of that statement, rather than the details of a backward existence, that the novel illuminates. Greer (The Path of Minor Planets) writes marvelously nuanced prose; with its turn-of-the-century lilt and poetic flashes, it is the perfect medium for this weird, mesmerizing and heartbreaking tale.

From Breeze:
I loved this story so much! It reminds me a lot of The Time Traveler's Wife...the whole premise of aging backwards keeps you wondering while at the same time you're hoping Max can finally be happy!

Chronic's reveal:



Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill

Synopsis
Heather O'Neill dazzles with a first novel of extraordinary prescience and power, a subtly understated yet searingly effective story of a young life on the streets - and the strength, wits, and luck necessary for survival.

At thirteen, Baby vacillates between childhood comforts and adult temptation: still young enough to drag her dolls around in a vinyl suitcase yet old enough to know more than she should about urban cruelties. Motherless, she lives with her father Jules, who takes better care of his heroin habit than he does of his daughter. Baby's gift is a genius for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness that fall into her lap. But her blossoming beauty has captured the attention of a charismatic and dangerous local pimp who runs an army of sad, slavishly devoted girls - a volatile situation even the normally oblivious Jules cannot ignore. And when an escape disguised as betrayal threatens to crush Baby's spirit, she will ultimately realize the power of salvation rests in her hands alone.

My reveal is:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak



It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

Why I picked it: This was one of the most stunning books I read all year. Markus Zusak has an incredible talent with words. Over and over I would come across a single sentence or thought that was so perfect, I would have to stop and re-read it a few times before moving on. The story was enthralling, expertly crafted and unforgettable. (I just hope there are a few people left who haven't read it ;))

My reveal is:

The Island by Victoria Hislop




On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more. Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony. Then she finds Fortini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip

purple-pixie's book is Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris:

Joanne Harris' sensational novel Five Quarters of the Orange revolves around a recipe book, continuing the theme of culinary intrigue begun in Chocolat and Blackberry Wine. Framboise, the middle-aged narrator, begins her story in Les Laveuses, on the banks of the Loire:
When my mother died she left the farm to my brother, Cassis, the fortune in the wine cellar to my sister, Reine-Claude, and to me, the youngest, her album and a two-litre jar containing a single black Perigord truffle.
Framboise returns to the village where she grew up during wartime, and with the help of the recipes scribbled in her mother's album, opens up a small restaurant. However, she is desperate to keep her identity a secret even amongst the aged villagers with whom she played on the banks of the Loire in the years of German occupation during the Second World War. Framboise immerses herself once again in the peaceful rhythms of village life, pungently evoked by Harris's evocative prose. But slowly, reluctantly, Framboise begins to unravel the terrible wartime secret that drove her family away from the village. As she cuts between idyllic descriptions of the village and the increasingly dark memories of the war, Framboise admits:
I know, I know. You want me to get to the point. But this is at least as important as the rest, the method of telling, and the time taken to tell. It has taken me fifty-five to begin, at least let me do it in my own way.
This could be a description of Harris's prose itself, as it slowly and deliberately cuts between Framboise's fragile present and her happy childhood, destroyed by the tragic innocence of youth. Although Five Quarters of the Orange finds Harris on familiar ground to Chocolat, this is a much darker and compelling novel of childhood nostalgia and betrayal, and the need to confront the tragedies of the past before they destroy the possibilities of a happier future

GatyGypsy's reveal




Set in San Francisco and in a remote village of southern China, this is a tale of American pragmatism shaken, and soothed, by Chinese ghosts. What proof of love do we seek between mother and daughter, among sisters, lovers, and friends? What are its boundaries and failings? Can love go beyond 'Until death do us part?' And if so, which aspects haunt us like regretful ghosts? In 1962, Olivia, nearly six years old, meets Kwan, her adult half sister from China, for the first time. Olivia's neglectful mother, who in pursuing a new marriage can't provide the attention her daughter needs, finds Kwan to be a handy caretaker. In the bedroom the sisters share, Kwan whispers secrets about ghosts and makes Olivia promise never to reveal them. Out of both fright and resentment, Olivia betrays her sister -- with terrible consequences. From then on she listens to Kwan's stories and pretends to believe them. Thirty years pass, and Olivia is about to divorce her husband, Simon, after a lengthy marriage. She is certain he has never given up his love for a former girlfriend, who died years before. Kwan and her ghosts believe otherwise, and they provide Olivia with ceaseless advice and pleas to reconsider. But Olivia has long since dismissed the ghosts of her childhood and the wacky counsel of her sister. Just as Kwan anticipates, fate intervenes and takes her, Olivia, and Simon to China. In the village where Kwan grew up, Olivia confronts the tangible evidence of what she has always presumed to be her sister's fantasy of the past. And there, she finds the proof that love endures, and comes to understand what logic ignores, what you can know only through the hundred secret senses.

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When I read this book, it had me laughing and crying and reading passages out loud to anyone who would listen. Amy Tan is an amazing storyteller, and writes memorable characters.

I had originally thought I would put Eat, Pray, Love up for this swap, but then I thought, ahhhh, it was a best seller and on the Globe & Mail "Best Of" list and maybe it'd be a little too predictable, and possibly already read! So I picked something else that really left and impression on me. I hope whoever gets it, likes it!

spiderchic's reveal:



The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen

'It is 1918 and the remote American mill town of Commonwealth has shut itself off in a self-imposed quarantine against a deadly and pitiless enemy - a killer influenza that has made a tragedy of everyday life.
But Commonwealth is no ordinary town - it is built and run on principles of freedom and democracy. Its inhabitants, desperate to escape the terrible fate of neighbouring towns, have voted to seal the town off - no one enters, and if anyone leaves they may not return. So when armed sentries are confronted by a starving soldier begging to enter the town, two men are forced to make a decision that will have profound consequences for them, the town and all who live in it...'

Rebecca reveals:
The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka



Product Description
At the age of fourteen, Lakshmi leaves behind her childhood among the mango trees of Ceylon for married life across the ocean in Malaysia, and soon finds herself struggling to raise a family in a country that is, by turns, unyielding and amazing, brutal and beautiful. Giving birth to a child every year until she is nineteen, Lakshmi becomes a formidable matriarch, determined to secure a better life for her daughters and sons. From the Japanese occupation during World War II to the torture of watching some of her children succumb to life’s most terrible temptations, she rises to face every new challenge with almost mythic strength. Dreamy and lyrical, told in the alternating voices of the men and women of this amazing family, The Rice Mother gorgeously evokes a world where small pleasures offset unimaginable horrors, where ghosts and gods walk hand in hand. It marks the triumphant debut of a writer whose wisdom and soaring prose will touch readers, especially women, the world over.