Winner Announced!

Sorry for the slow notification!  

The giveaway for a copy of Invisible Thread has come to a close and I'm happy to report that the winner is Cozy in Texas!


Congratulations and I hope you enjoy the book.

Giveaway - An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-year-old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski

I am happy to be able to offer a giveaway for up to three copies of this book:  An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-year-old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny  by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski.

Here's some information about the book:

“Excuse me lady, do you have any spare change? I am hungry.”

When I heard him, I didn’t really hear him. His words were part of the clatter, like a car horn or someone yelling for a cab. They were, you could say, just noise—the kind of nuisance New Yorkers learn to tune out. So I walked right by him, as if he wasn’t there. 

But then, just a few yards past him, I stopped. 

And then—and I’m still not sure why I did this—I came back.

When Laura Schroff first met Maurice on a New York City street corner, she had no idea that she was standing on the brink of an incredible and unlikely friendship that would inevitably change both their lives. As one lunch at McDonald’s with Maurice turns into two, then into a weekly occurrence, Laura learns heart-wrenching details about Maurice’s horrific childhood.

Sprinkled throughout the book is also Laura’s own story of her turbulent childhood. Every now and then, something about Maurice's struggles reminds her of her past, how her father’s alcohol-induced rages shaped the person she became and, in a way, led her to Maurice.

As their friendship grows, Laura offers Maurice simple experiences he comes to treasure: learning how to set a table, trimming a Christmas tree, visiting her nieces and nephew on Long Island, and even having homemade lunches to bring to school.

AN INVISIBLE THREAD is the heartwarming story of a friendship that has spanned thirty years and brought life to an over-scheduled professional and hope to a hungry and desperate boy.

An Invisible Thread from UMBRASOLUTIONS on Vimeo.


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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

This giveaway runs February 23rd through March 2nd (midnight central time).   Only one entry per person.  You must have a US or Canadian shipping address to be eligible to win a copy.

Please fill out the form below.   Thanks!

Giveaway winner announced

Thanks to all those who entered for a chance to win a copy of Blue Monday by Nicci French.

The lucky winner was Martha H.

Congrats Martha!  I've already emailed my contact with the publisher so I'm sure they'll work on getting it in the  mail to you this week.

Q&A and Giveaway - Blue Monday by Nicci French

I'm happy to provide my readers with not only an interesting Q&A with the authors of Blue Monday but also with a chance to win a galley copy of Blue Monday.  The giveaway info is below the Q&A.  Enjoy!

Q&A with Nicci Gerrard and Sean French,

AKA Nicci French, author of

BLUE MONDAY

(On sale 3/5/12 from Pamela Dorman Books/Viking; 978-0-670-02336-3/0-670-02336-1)

BLUE MONDAY is your thirteenth book and the first book in a new series of psychological thrillers, introducing Frieda a psychotherapist. It’s also the first series you’ve ever written. What was the inspiration for this new series?

Frieda came along before the idea of writing a series did. We had always said we wrote stand-alone thrillers, but then we thought about a central character who is a therapist, someone who believes you can’t solve the mess in the world but you can try to address the mess in your own head, the pain and fear and anxiety inside of you. We thought of her as a different kind of detective, a detective of the mind, who is unwillingly dragged by the events that unfurl in the novel out into the real world.

Once we had imagined Frieda—solitary, insomniac, prickly, difficult, honorable, trustworthy, fiercely private—we knew she needed more than one book. She has to be discovered over time. And from that the octet gradually emerged. The books will cover a decade in Frieda’s life and the lives of the cast that she assembles around her; we want to see how time marks them, how they are changed by the experiences they live through together.

Also, we became excited by the idea of writing eight books that could stand as gripping thrillers in their own right, but which are also connected by one over-arching story. In BLUE MONDAY a fuse is lit that then will burn its way through the remaining seven books, coming to a climax in the final novel.

 

Where did the title BLUE MONDAY come from?

This is the first book of a planned series of dark thrillers that will be named after the days of the week. The title BLUE MONDAY seemed perfect to us because it is both about beginnings but also about the difficulty of beginning, its pains and regrets and fears. It also happens to be the title of not just one but two (very different) great songs – by Fats Domino and New Order.

Set against a backdrop of a dark, tangled London, BLUE MONDAY illustrates your power over a sense of place. As Frieda navigates its streets one can almost feel the damp chill of London’s foggy night air. What is your writing process? What are some things about the London you depict in your books that those of us in the US might not know?

As regards London, our writing process is to do what we have always done, which is to spend a lot of our time walking, cycling—and sometimes running—around the city, exploring its hidden alleys, squares, canals. We have both spent many years living in the city and every time we go out we see something completely new. Much of BLUE MONDAY came out of those walks.

A few things you need to know about London:

It’s big; really big. Greater London is about thirty-five miles across.

It’s really old. It’s been a continuously functioning (and dis-functioning) city since the Romans and it has been built on, burnt down, bombed, demolished, built on, over and over again.

London is really a collection of villages that used to be separated by fields and meadows and woodlands and orchards that gradually got filled up but they still hang on to their identity. In good ways and bad, London is a jangling mess. North Londoners don’t like South London, East Enders feel persecuted by everybody, West Kensington isn’t really in Kensington, and wherever you’re from anywhere in the world, you’ll find a community somewhere in London.

London is a landscape as much as a city, one of the oldest and most complicated landscapes in England.

And still, there’s so much that we don’t understand about London. For example, why do tourists always go to Madame Tussaud’s?

What are some things about you that might be a surprise to those of us in the US?

Sean: My mother is Swedish and we spend every New Year in central Sweden. On New Year’s Eve we have a sauna and jump through a hole in the ice.

Nicci and I studied the same subject (English literature) at the same university (Oxford) but we didn’t meet until ten years later.

In 2005, we ran the London Marathon together. Literally—we crossed the line at the same time.

Nicci: I broke my back a few years ago (and have sworn never to get on a horse again).

I am trained as a celebrant—I can bury people!

One of my passions is growing chillies—very, very hot chillies. Another is eating them (if you eat burningly hot chillies when they are frozen, you can taste their real flavour and only later do they explode in your chest like a small bomb).

Frieda is a psychotherapist. What kind of research did you do to make her so real?

Sean: Frieda emerged from our fascination with the whole subject of doctors whose job it is to make sense of our lives just by the way we talk about them. We have friends who are therapists, we have a certain experience of therapy, we’ve talked to people who have undergone therapy and we’ve read an awful lot about it.

Nicci: And also, in a way, therapy is a bit like writing itself: you take chaos and put order onto it, a road out of the dark woods.

What are you working on now?

Sean: We’ve just finished the second Frieda Klein and we’re standing nervously by the edge plucking up the nerve to dive into the third one.

You are known as the internationally bestselling author Nicci French, yet really there are two of you: Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, writing partners and husband and wife and you live in England. Why did you decide to start writing fiction together?

Sean:  In the first years we were married, we talked about the idea. We knew that people could collaborate in different ways but we were interested in whether two people could write a novel that had one voice, where you were really creating a new person.

Nicci: It was like an experiment. But looking back at it, all these years and fourteen books later, it seems so odd, such a strange thing to do when we were both working flat out anyway, with four tiny children racing around the house. We didn’t do it because we thought we would write a book, get it published, become Nicci French. We did it to see if we could do it, because it seemed like a shared adventure—and it has been a shared adventure, a way of exploring the world together.

How do you manage co-authorship? Do you sit down and write together or do you take it in shifts?

Nicci:  When we talk about how we write together we tend to make it sound much neater and better managed than it actually is, it’s a rather chaotic and messy business. The one thing we never do is actually sit down and write together, and the thought of one of us dictating to the other is a kind of madness, it just wouldn’t work. We spend a long time talking about the shape of the novel, the story, the way the plot goes, the development of the characters and above all the voice of the narrator into whom we both have to write, and once we’re satisfied with that then we’ll start to write. The writing will quite often take us away from the plan, but that’s what we do. One of us will write, say, the first chapter and then hand it over to the other who is absolutely free to change it, edit it, erase it, add other words to it, and then they will write the next chapter and pass it back. It’s a question of moving between the two of us. We never decide in advance who’s going to write what chapter, there’s no division.

Sean:  We felt that in order for it to work we both have to be responsible for everything, whether we (individually) have written it or not. If there’s any research that needs doing for a book then we both have to do it, we both have to have all of it in our heads.

Nicci:  If Sean writes something and I change absolutely nothing about that whole section, but I read it and approve it, then it becomes mine as well. It becomes a kind of Nicci French thing so we both own each word of it.

Why did you choose to write crime novels?

Nicci:  I’m interested in crime in the sense that I’m interested in the strange path that people’s lives can go down. I’m not so much interested in the criminal; I’m much more interested in the victim, the effects of the crime and what lies beneath the settled surface. Most people, when you meet them, present themselves as ordered and controlled; they have a self-possessed image. Underneath that everybody is a welter of doubt, grief, loss, nostalgia, love and hate; that’s what I’m interested in. The thrillers that we write are not about fiendishly clever serial killers outwitting the police, they’re about ordinary people who have extraordinary things happening in the middle of their lives, and the way that they change and have to resolve things. I think that attracts us to the thriller genre.

You chose to use a female pseudonym, and almost all your novels so far have been written from a female viewpoint. Is there a reason for this?

Sean:  The first idea we had was about recovered memory, and 99% of people recovering memory in therapy are women, so it obviously had to be a woman. Once it was a woman as the main character then it just seemed obvious that if we were going to choose a name, that it should be a female name. Women have achieved a kind of independence and equality, a nominal independence, and yet so many things haven’t changed. There are so many kinds of unexpected pressures that have come along with that, and that seemed an interesting road to go down.

Nicci:  It is that sense of there being a cross-current between what modern women are like now; assertive, independent, strong, ambitious, and yet still very physically vulnerable, but also vulnerable to all the things that attack us from the past, all the things we’re conditioned to feel. There’s a kind of emotional vulnerability and intelligence, a particular kind of female intelligence that seems to be a good way of looking at the world.

_______________________________________________________________________

I am happy to be able to offer one lucky reader a copy of this book.  I was so tempted to get a copy for myself but know things are going to be crazy for me and I don't want to commit to too much.

The galley copy is available to anybody with a US or Canadian mailing address.  You have until midnight (central time) on February 19th to enter.  To enter, just fill out the form below.  That's it!  Good luck everyone.

World Book Night 2012

If you haven't heard about World Book Night yet, be prepared to fall in love. 

World Book Night 2012 will be held on April 23, 2012.   On this night 50,000 book lovers (that's the goal anyway) across the UK and US will give away books.  That's a lot of books folks!  Apparently the first ever World Book Night was held in the UK last year and was a complete success. I'm so glad to see something this crazy and awesome event hop the pond and show up in the US. 

I would love to participate and be one of the givers but the date is just way too close to Baby Girl's arrival for me to commit.   Hopefully some of you will be interested and be able selected as a giver.   To sign up, just head to the World Book Night Giver website, be sure to read the terms and conditions though to make sure you're a good fit.

Giveaway - A Spirited Gift: A Missing Pieces Mystery by Jim and Joyce Lavene

Another giveaway!   I've been given the opportunity to giveaway 1 copy of this book to one of my readers. How perfect for the month of sharing and giving right?

This is the 3rd book in the Missing Pieces Mystery series.  I've read the first two in the series and have really enjoyed them.   I'm hoping the 3rd is just as good.

This giveaway is open to anybody with a US mailing address.  

The giveaway is open from December 2nd through December 16th (midnight/central time).  Good luck!

Giveaway: The Doctor and the Diva by Adrienne McDonnell

I'm happy to be able to offer a Q&A from this author as well as a giveaway to 2 lucky individuals for her book The Doctor and the Diva.  I haven't read it myself but it sure sounds good.

The giveaway info can be found towards the bottom, after the Q&A.

A Conversation with Adrienne McDonnell, author of

THE DOCTOR AND THE DIVA

What is THE DOCTOR AND THE DIVA about?

The story begins in 1903, in Boston.  A young, Harvard-educated obstetrician who is a rising star in his profession becomes dangerously attracted to a patient—a lovely opera singer.  She turns to the doctor for help in conceiving a child.  The doctor becomes so drawn to her that he takes a great moral risk—a secret he can share with no one.

The novel is based on ancestors, and hundreds of pages of family letters.  Who were those ancestors?

The married couple in the novel, Erika von Kessler and her husband Peter, were inspired by my son’s paternal ancestors—his great-great grandparents.  They lived in Boston at the beginning of the twentieth century, and they were an extraordinary pair.  Even by modern standards, they dared to live in bold, highly adventurous ways. 

What moved you to write about them?

I can remember the moment I first heard about the great-great grandmother, the woman whom I call “Erika” in the novel.  I was nineteen years old, living in Santa Barbara.  A friend had gone away for the weekend, and she’d loaned me her beachfront apartment.  It was around midnight, and I was lying there in the arms of a young man I barely knew.  He later became my husband, but at that moment we were just beginning to know one another.  He talked about his grandfather, who had recently died.  Suddenly he said, “When my grandfather was a little boy, his mother deserted him and her husband and moved to Italy to develop her career as an opera singer.”

           

The idea of a privileged woman in early twentieth century Boston who abandoned her husband and small child for the sake of her art … the thought of it amazed me.  Then I couldn’t decide: did I admire her and want to applaud her courage?  Or was it heartbreaking that she’d deserted her little boy?  The tension of all those conflicting feelings drew my imagination to her.

How did you manage to learn more about her life?

Early in our marriage, my husband and I moved to Boston.  Every day on my way to work, I walked through the Back Bay neighborhood where these ancestors had once lived.  Erika’s childhood home stood on Commonwealth Avenue.   Her father was a famous physician, and they lived in a rather grand house with two archways. 

           

When I went up to the front entrance and cupped my hands against the glass pane to peer inside, I saw that much remained the same as it had been in the late nineteenth century.  The wide staircase was still paneled in black walnut, and I imagined her fiancé Peter mounting the steps, and her voice echoing down to him while she sang from the parlor upstairs.

 

Why did their story seem so haunting to you?

When I stood across the street from “Erika’s” house, I could almost see a young girl’s face—her face—staring back at me from an oval window on the third story.  I had a strange sense of god-like omniscience, because I knew things about her life that she couldn’t foresee—how her husband would one day be forced to divorce her and take custody of their small son; how she would sing in I Puritanifrom Montepulciano, Italy; how her little boy would write her letters that were never delivered to her.

 

What about her husband?  How was he unusual?

Her husband was a fascinating person as well.  He was British, a highly successful international businessman – an importer of Egyptian cotton, among other things.  “Peter” was a man of voracious curiosity, a naturalist, a lover of flora and fauna.  He imported the first chimpanzees to the London Zoo, where he later became a Director.  He traveled across four continents, and ventured into remote places, keen on seeing and experiencing everything.  And he wrote prolific, richly detailed letters.  

He was the sort of man who’d ride a camel through the Egyptian desert to visit a tribe of Bishareen nomads, where he’d move from tent to tent, tasting their dried bread and goat’s milk.

Or he’d head to a friend’s lush Caribbean coconut plantation, where they’d ride at midnight in a buggy along a beach, with vampire bats flying overhead….  He’d slash a path through a rainforest with his machete, or he’d travel upriver in South America toward a waterfall that few Europeans had ever seen.

A third character in the novel—the fertility doctor Erika and Peter consult—becomes a crucial figure in their lives.  Many readers may be surprised to learn that fertility specialists existed in 1903.  Were their treatments effective?

Certain procedures that many people might regard as “modern”—such as artificial insemination—were actually being practiced more than a century ago, but doctors had to conduct such work surreptitiously.  They risked grave moral condemnation.

THE DOCTOR AND THE DIVA takes place at a real turning point in medical history.  Prior to that era, if a couple were unable to have children, the fault was always placed on the woman.  The problem was always thought to be due to a “barren” wife.  In the latter half of the 19^th century, physicians began to discover a startling truth: a man could be virile—he could be sexually potent—and yet he might also be infertile.

What led to that discovery?

As far back as 1677, a man in Holland named Leeuwenhoek looked through a microscope and saw sperm.  By the mid-nineteenth century, physicians had begun to study human sperm with real scientific scrutiny.  An American physician named Dr. Sims became known as “the father of modern gynecology.”  Dr. Sims would follow married couples into their homes.  He’d wait behind a bedroom wall while a couple had intercourse, and then he’d rush in and probe and take measure of things under the microscope.  He invented an instrument known as the “impregnating syringe.” 

 

During the Victorian era, how was he allowed to do that kind of research?

Dr. Sims shocked and appalled many people. But the majority of patients who filled gynecologists’ consulting rooms during the nineteenth century came there because of infertility.  Some were so desperate to conceive a child that they were motivated and willing to cooperate.

There’s some statistical evidence that infertility was more prevalent during the nineteenth century than it is today.  One cause was gonorrhea, which was epidemic and incurable then.  During the 1870s, there was one rather sad and touching case that convinced a professor of obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania that husbands—as well as wives—were part of the equation.  A female patient came to him, begging for an operation to help her conceive.  While the doctor was trying to decide if he ought to perform the procedure, the woman’s husband presented himself, feeling very guilty about all his wife’s anguish and distress.  He told the doctor that he believed his gonorrhea—from which he’d been suffering for many years—must be the root cause.  So, after an examination of the husband’s semen under the microscope, it became evident that the man was sterile.  This proved a revelation for the professor of obstetrics.  Afterward, he told his colleagues: I beg of you, be sure to examine the husband, as well as the wife.

A century ago when doctors performed artificial insemination, did they use a husband’s sperm, or a donor’s?

At first, during the mid-nineteenth century, they relied on the husband’s sperm.  But by the 1880s and 1890s, certain gynecologists did begin to use donor sperm—although they rarely revealed what they’d done until decades later.

Older women in the family shared their memories with you, and rumors they’d overheard.  What else did they say about the real Erika?

One elderly cousin, born in England in 1898, came to visit the U.S.  As a child, she’d heard a lot of whispering about her American aunt.  She’d heard that “Erika” had a baby daughter fathered by a man who was not her husband….  She’d heard that long after Erika had deserted her son, she’d appeared one day, unannounced, at her son’s boarding school.

           

The novel draws upon hundreds of pages of family letters.  Where did you find those letters?

After my husband and I had lived in Boston for nine years, we decided to move back to the West Coast.  We drove cross-country and stopped at his aunt’s ranch in the Sierra Nevada foothills.  Like me, she had a passion for genealogy.  From the moment you stepped into her house, you felt the presence of the ancestors….  Huge family portraits stared down at you from her living room walls.  She had a little gallery of framed butterflies -- a dozen exquisite butterflies that her grandfather “Peter” had meticulously painted with hair-thin brushes. 

“Where are the letters I’ve heard so much about?”  I asked her.  The aunt brought out hundreds of pages of correspondence.  Reading them just amazed me.  I realized that these ancestors had led far bigger lives than I’d imagined.  Their voices could be heard in those pages.  There was so much detail and adventure—nights spent exploring winding streets in Tangier, or visits to a coconut plantation in the Caribbean where the guests told ghost stories after dinner…. 

If Erika were alive today, do you think her career vs. motherhood conflicts would be any different?

Her guilt and anguish would probably be very similar to that described in the novel.  But I think that today, the courts and society would have allowed her more flexibility with respect to staying in contact with her child.  In those times, transatlantic airplane travel wasn’t an option.  She couldn’t fly back and forth to visit her son for a few days.  In that era, if a mother moved across an ocean and settled in another country, that was it —she was gone.  And from a legal standpoint, she surrendered her rights to custody.

It’s interesting to think about her husband “Peter” and his mode of parenting.  In real life, “Peter” was often an ocean and a continent away from his young son, and he did a lot of his parenting by letter.  At the age of seven, the boy was placed in boarding school, and during vacations, his father arranged for him to live with a family like the “Talcotts” (as described in the novel).  The boy was basically “mothered” by a colleague’s wife. But despite his father’s long absences, the real-life Quentin always regarded his father as a towering, loving figure—and as an extraordinary man.

And long after Erika’s death in 1918, her son remembered his mother with a certain pride and respect.  His daughters told me that as they were growing up, “Quentin” always kept a framed photograph of his mother on top the Steinway piano—a picture of Erika dressed in her operatic regalia. 

What did you enjoy most about writing THE DOCTOR AND THE DIVA?

Apart from the joy of composing the fictionalized story, I loved doing the research.  It was deeply pleasurable to steep myself in another era, and revel in all those exotic lands described in century-old family letters. 

Learning about the history of medicine and the working life of a 1903 obstetrician like Dr. Ravell—that was also fascinating.  And the music!  I cannot tell you how it nourished my soul and my senses, to listen to the gorgeous arias that Erika sang.  Had it not been for my son’s ancestor, I might have missed out on a whole domain of thrilling and lovely music.

How long did it take you to write THE DOCTOR AND THE DIVA?

About six years.  I wrote a first draft of the novel in the mid-1980s, but the result was lifeless and stale.  I packed up those pages and stored them in a box for twenty years. 

Then, after a couple of decades passed, I envisioned an entirely new way to frame the novel.  This time I would begin Erika’s story not through her own perspective, but instead through the eyes of the young doctor who was becoming obsessed with her, a man who would take a terrible risk and jeopardize his career because of her.

How did you research the novel, and balance factual information with storytelling?

First, I read the family letters with great scrutiny, always on the lookout for material that might be transformed into a scene.  I imagined the exotic locales as stage sets where dramas might unfold.

Like any good student, I brought home musty books and old recordings from University and public libraries, and while I pulled out my pen and took careful notes, my conscious and unconscious mind were both at work.  I was constantly on the hunt for just the right, historically apt detail.  For example, when Erika is confined to her bed during childbirth, Doctor Ravell puts a ball of cotton soaked in chloroform into a tumbler, and he tells Erika to place the glass over her nose.  After she breathes its vapors, the tumbler slides from her hand and rolls along the carpeted floor.  That’s all you need to evoke pain relief during childbirth in 1904—one detail like that, just a whiff.

What was the creative process like? 

I researched for a couple of years before the formal, serious writing of the novel began.  While I was gathering the historical facts, an entire scene would often come to me.  Whenever I “overheard” conversations between the characters and I’d grab scrap paper and capture their dialogue quickly.  I jotted down whatever the characters were saying, even when I had no idea where in the novel that exchange might occur.  I tossed the wildly scribbled scenes into a box and saved them.  As I researched, the dramatic scenes accumulated, and the story line began to take shape.  (Later I found that the dialogue I’d “overheard” barely needed revision.  It came out clean, and sounded natural.)

For many months I refrained from doing any “real” writing.  Instead, I kept listening to ravishing arias and consuming a feast of fascinating information—about the history of medicine and opera, about the training of vocal artists, or about apartment hunting in Florence a century ago.   

When I finally sat down to begin the newly envisioned novel in earnest, I pulled out that box of spontaneously scribbled, random scenes and saw very quickly how they ought to be sequenced.  Even before I began to compose the first page, my unconscious had already done much of the work.  A new draft erupted from me with great speed and excitement.

On a deeper, thematic level, what is THE DOCTOR AND THE DIVA about?

The themes are too many to count, but I will say this.  Several characters in the novel commit unthinkable acts.  I’ve always been interested in the challenge of seeing a character’s situation with empathy, so that even the most shocking choice or appalling actions might become understandable

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Giveaway info

The publisher has kindly allowed me to give away 2 copies of this book to my blog readers.  The mailing address has to be US or Canada and cannot be a PO Box.

The giveaway will be open from December 1 through December 15th(midnight central time).

Please fill out the form for an entry...and good luck!

Laura Lippman Giveaway - Winners

Sorry for the delay but I'm happy to finally announce the winners of the Laura Lippman Giveaway.  Thanks to all who entered and Congrats to all the winners.

The winner of Baltimore Blues is Sandie K!

The winner of Hardly Knew Her is Susan H of My Round File!

The winner of I'd Know You Anywhere is Kate G. of The Everyday adventures of SuperKate!


Congratulations again winners!  I'll notify my contact with the publisher and they will take care of sending out the books.

Laura Lippman Giveaway

As many of you probably know, Laura Lippman’s latest book I’d Know You Anywhere was released in trade paperback earlier this month. As a way to promote the author and her new book I’m happy to have the opportunity to host a giveaway for 3 of the author's books.

I haven’t had the chance to personally read any of Laura Lippman’s books yet but I’ve been wanting to for awhile. In fact, I know I’ll be reading Baltimore Blue’s later this year.

For those of you who haven’t read anything by her yet, here’s some info for you:
I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE is a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award (mystery category) and for the 2011 Edgar Award in the Best Novel category. The book was also nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award. I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE was included on numerous “Best of 2010” lists, including Stephen King's list in Entertainment Weekly. Lippman has previously won Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Gumshoe and Quill Awards for her work. The Washington Post calls her “One of the best novelists around, period.”






Here’s some info about I’d Know you Anywhere:
More about I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE (Morrow; Trade Paperback; On-sale May 3, 2011):

There was your photo, in a magazine. Of course, you are older now. Still, I'd know you anywhere.
Suburban wife and mother Eliza Benedict's peaceful world falls off its axis when a letter arrives from Walter Bowman. In the summer of 1985, when Eliza was fifteen, she was kidnapped by this man and held hostage for almost six weeks. Now he's on death row in Virginia for the rape and murder of his final victim, and Eliza wants nothing to do with him. Walter, however, is unpredictable when ignored—as Eliza knows only too well—and to shelter her children from the nightmare of her past, she'll see him one last time.
But Walter is after something more than forgiveness: He wants Eliza to save his life . . . and he wants her to remember the truth about that long-ago summer and release the terrible secret she's keeping buried inside.

“Laura Lippman is among the select group of novelists who have invigorated the crime fiction arena with smart, innovative, and exciting work.” —George Pelecanos
“This is a story that grips you not with suspense but with its acute psychological autopsy of a survivor. Lippman’s knack for elucidating the horrors humans can inflict on one another through violence and manipulation — while telling a compelling story —is disarming and fascinating.” —USA Today
“Lippman’s taut, mesmerizing, and exceptionally smart drama of predator and prey is at once unusually sensitive and utterly compelling. —Booklist
“Lippman’s dedicated fans will find themselves well rewarded with I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE, an exceptional novel in every way, which is sure to gain her many new followers.” —San Diego Union-Tribune


You can read more about the author at her site with Harper Collins or on her own website.


Now..I did mention a giveaway didn’t I? I’m able to offer 1 copy of each of the following books:
Baltimore Blues
Hardly Knew Her
I’d Know You Anywhere

To enter, just fill out the form. Anybody with a US or Canadian address can enter. You can choose all three books or you can choose just one or two. I’ll do a separate drawing for each book. The giveaway will end at midnight (central time) on May 27th . Good luck!

Giveaways announced

Sorry I'm just now getting to the giveaways..I know I promised I would do it on Saturday.  I had other things going on though (such as working on my bookshelves!)

The winner of Beaglemania by Linda O. Johnston is Martha H. Congratulations Martha!

The winner of Fruit of All Evil by Paige Shelton is Anne W.  Congratulations Anne!

The winner of Touch of Gold by  Joyce and Jim Levene is Mary W. Congrats Mary!





I'll be contacting the person providing the books for the giveaway today and letting her know won and where to send your lovely items.

Giveaway - 2 March releases for Cozies!

I'm happy to be able to offer you lovely readers a chance to win 2 more cozy mysteries!  Both of these books were released this month and the are each the 2nd book in series that were new last year.

The two books are:

Fruit of all Evil by Paige Shelton
Touch of Gold by Joyce and Jim Lavene




Fruit of Evil is the 2nd in the Farmer's Market Mystery series by the author. I recently read and reviewed this book, to sum it up I think this is a series that has a lot of potential and cozy fans will enjoy. 


Touch of Gold is the 2nd in the Missing Pieces mystery series.  While I have this book at home, I haven't read it yet (fingers crossed I can get to it by the end of the month).   I enjoyed the first one in this series and hope this one will be just as good.




This contest is open to all who have a US shipping address.   I am able to offer 1 copy of each title.    This time around you are able to select if you want a chance to win both books, or just one.  Just mark one or both on the form and I'll be selection the winners separatly. It's very possible that the same person will win both, but you never know!

The giveaway is open March 16th through March 25th at midnight (central time).   I'll be picking a winner via random.org and posting the winners on the 26th.


Good luck everyone!   


A special thanks to the publisher for offering the books for giveaways.