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January 28, 2005

Bookreporter.com Newsletter

January 28, 2005

This Week on Bookreporter.com

Snowstorms, Fireplaces and Reading

Rita Mae Brown, Author of CAT'S EYEWITNESS and Now in Paperback, WHISKER OF EVIL

Suspense/Thriller Author Spotlight: Announcing Jodi Compton, Author of SYMPATHY BETWEEN HUMANS

Suspense/Thriller Author Spotlight: Richard Montanari, Author of THE ROSARY GIRLS

ONE TO WATCH: THE EFFECTS OF LIGHT by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Debut Suspense/Thriller Author: Michele Martinez, Author of MOST WANTED

MY JIM by Nancy Rawles

This Week's Reviews and Features

New in Paperback for January

TOOL & DIE by Sarah Graves: See What Readers Had to Say

AuthorsOnTheWeb.com Author Bibliographies

Bookreporter.com Blog

Poll: Upcoming Releases
Question of the Week: Name Those Authors
Word of Mouth: Tell Us What You're Reading -- TWO Prizes!
Quick Links to Features On The Book Report Network
 
Bookreporter.com
Past Reviews
Can't See the Graphics? Read This Newsletter Online
Past Poll: What books are you looking forward to reading?
Past Question of the Week: What did you read over the holiday?
Suspense/Thriller Author Spotlight Promotion
Debut Suspense/Thriller One to Watch Promotion
Mystery Mayhem Promotion

Fantasy Author Spotlight Promotion

One to Watch Promotion
Chick Lit Promotion
Read more about HEY THERE CUPCAKE here. Read more about THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AN ORDINARY LIFE here. Shop Amazon with this link to support Bookreporter.com

Snowstorms, Fireplaces and Reading

Last weekend I celebrated the snowstorm sitting on the couch reading ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AN ORDINARY LIFE by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Some of you may have read my comments about this book on the Bookreporter.com Blog. Tuesday night I had the opportunity to meet Rosenthal at a reading that she did in New York. She is both shy and approachable, and is just as honestly sincere in person as she is on paper. Last week my son told me what he likes about this book is that it talks about a regular person's life like it is special as opposed to what we see so much where celebrities are deified.  It's definitely one of my new favorite books. Read the blog to see more about it.

Here is one of my favorite bookish moments: I discover an author, really like their work and find --- they have a backlist to explore. There's no need to wait another year to read their next book. We have comments from the advance readers of Sarah Graves' TOOL & DIE this week, who are saying just this. I love when we introduce you to a new author and give you more than one book to explore.

Last year I discovered Jodi Compton and I enjoyed sharing her work with our readers in our Debut Suspense/Thriller promotion. Now Jodi is back with her second book, SYMPATHY BETWEEN HUMANS, which will be in stores on March 1st. I am enjoying reading this and seeing where she is taking her characters. We have 20 copies of SYMPATHY BETWEEN HUMANS to share with readers who would like to explore it and then comment about it. Send your name and mailing address to [email protected] by Friday, February 11th to be eligible to win. And for those of you who love to read paperbacks, Jodi's debut novel THE 37TH HOUR just came out in paperback this week.

Also this week Carter Coleman answers reader questions about CAGE'S BEND. I love when we can close the circle like this by bringing you an author's feedback. Speaking of author feedback, if you are in a book club, I would love to hear what you have to say about inviting an author to a book club meeting. Vote in the ReadingGroupGuides.com Poll.

I am off to frost my older's son's 15th birthday cake for tonight's celebration. My two boys were born five days apart thus making this "Marble Cake with Chocolate Frosting Week" in our house. I am lamenting the boys getting older for a really crazy reason. No, it's not because I am getting older, too. (In my mind, I am locked in at age 27.) Rather, it means I no longer am making crazy shaped cakes. Somewhere around 10 kids settle in and no longer need a cake shaped like anything but round! I love creating cakes and cupcake displays. The boys tease that I am a "Cupcake Overachiever." I found a new book to feed my love of cupcake design, HEY THERE, CUPCAKE! It has great ideas for decorating cupcakes and will inspire you!

Have a great week. Stay warm. I am going to try to convince someone here to build some nice fires in the fireplace this weekend. I am curiously inept at starting a fire myself!

Carol Fitzgerald ([email protected])

Read the Bookreporter.com Blog here. Read more about Carter Coleman and CAGE'S BEND here. Answer the ReadingGroupGuides.com Poll here.

Rita Mae Brown, Author of CAT'S EYEWITNESS and Now in Paperback, WHISKER OF EVIL

CAT'S EYEWITNESS by Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown (Mystery)
Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
In Rita Mae Brown's latest "Mrs. Murphy" mystery, a controversial miracle in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains sparks religious fervor --- and a suspicious death. Now Mrs. Murphy, Pewter and Tee Tucker must trust their animal instincts to sniff out the worst of human nature.

And Now in Paperback:
WHISKER OF EVIL by Rita Mae Brown (Mystery)
Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick
Tiny Crozet, Virginia confronts a deadly disease and an even deadlier villain in this twelfth installment in the Mrs. Murphy mystery series. "Harry" Haristeen and her loyal pets are back to battle both evil and injustice, as Harry plots to solve the murders and fight for animal rights --- at the post office.

Read our review of CAT'S EYEWITNESS here.


 

Suspense/Thriller Author Spotlight: Announcing Jodi Compton, Author of SYMPATHY BETWEEN HUMANS

This week we announce our new Suspense/Thriller author, Jodi Compton. Many of you may remember her as spotlighted her as a Debut Suspense/Thriller author last year with THE 37TH HOUR, which is now just out in paperback. We have 20 advanced reading copies of Jodi's SYMPATHY BETWEEN HUMANS, which will be on sale on March 1st, to give away to readers who would like to preview the book and comment about it. A description can be found by clicking the link below. If you are interested, please send your name and mailing address to [email protected] by Friday, February 11, 2005.
 
Here's more about SYMPATHY BETWEEN HUMANS:
 
On the streets of Minneapolis, Sarah has worked everything from vice to missing persons. But six months after the death of a small-town criminal in rural Minnesota, Sarah is still protecting the identity of a killer. And now a zealous D.A.'s investigator has come to town, determined to make an arrest. With her ex-partner half a world away and her husband in prison, only Sarah remains to face the consequences of last fall.
 
THE 37TH HOUR by Jodi Compton (Mystery & Detective)
Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Jodi Compton's lead character, Sarah Pribek, is a "missing persons" investigator in the Twin Cities who ends up living the nightmare she walks others through each day when her husband, a fellow officer, goes missing. In her travels to find him, she learns about his troubled past and secrets that help her define who he is.
Click here to read more about Jodi Compton and SYMPATHY BETWEEN HUMANS as well as her debut title, THE 37TH HOUR, Now in Paperback.
 

Suspense/Thriller Author Spotlight: Richard Montanari, Author of THE ROSARY GIRLS

Richard Montanari, author of THE ROSARY GIRLS, is one of our previously featured Suspense/Thriller authors. THE ROSARY GIRLS will be in stores on February 15th.

New This Week:
-Read a second excerpt from THE ROSARY GIRLS

-Read more about Richard Montanari
-Visit Richard Montanari's website: RichardMontanari.com

More about THE ROSARY GIRLS:
Richard Montanari has written an astounding novel that pits two besieged detectives against a fiercely intelligent serial killer. Relentlessly paced and vividly told, THE ROSARY GIRLS is a smart, emotionally complex, fiercely gripping thriller from an author who takes chances, breaks new ground, and leaves readers haunted and moved long after the last page is turned.

Read more about Richard Montanari and THE ROSARY GIRLS here.


 

ONE TO WATCH: THE EFFECTS OF LIGHT by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore



 ( http://www.bookreporter.com/features/0411-NIP.asp )

 

Our newest One To Watch author is Miranda Beverly-Whittemore. Her novel, THE EFFECTS OF LIGHT, is beautifully and delicately written. It will be in stores on February 1st.

New: Read an excerpt from THE EFFECTS OF LIGHT

Here's more about THE EFFECTS OF LIGHT:

This richly evocative, poignant novel about two sisters, whose lives are forever altered by a series of photos, marks the debut of a remarkable talent. Their precocity and ethereal beauty soon make them the favorite subjects of photographer and family friend Ruth Handel, whose celebrated images of children involve nudity. The girls are at the center of a firestorm of controversy, with shattering results. Now, 13 years later, Myla Wolfe is living back east and finally edging toward romance, when she begins receiving mysterious communications that force her to confront her past and reclaim her future.

Read more about Miranda Beverly-Whittemore and THE EFFECTS OF LIGHT here.


 

Debut Suspense/Thriller Author: Michele Martinez, Author of MOST WANTED

 

Our new featured Debut Suspense/Thriller author is Michele Martinez. Her novel, MOST WANTED, is a solidly written pageturner that will have you craving the second book in the series. It will be in stores on February 15th.

New This Week:
-Read an excerpt.

Here's more about MOST WANTED:

Melanie Vargas is a hardworking, hotshot federal prosecutor in New York City with a rising career in the law and a marriage that's on the rocks. On an innocent evening stroll with her child, Melanie stumbles across a horrifying crime scene. It's the kind of high-profile case that can make her name, and Melanie wants in. But what she doesn't realize is that this opportunity will bring her dangerously close to a hard-to-resist FBI agent who may have secrets of his own -- and even closer to a dark, sadistic killer who seems to be one step ahead of her every inch of the way.

Read about Michele Martinez.
Sign up to get news about Michele Martinez.
Go to the website for
Michele Martinez.

Read more about Michele Martinez and MOST WANTED here.


 

MY JIM by Nancy Rawles

 

A deeply moving recasting of one of the most controversial characters in American literature, Huckleberry Finn's Jim

Written in the great literary tradition of novels of American slavery, MY JIM is told in the incantatory voice of Sadie Watson, an ex-slave who schools her granddaughter with lessons of love she learned in bondage. To help her granddaughter confront the decisions she needs to make, Sadie mines her memory for the tale of the unquenchable love of her life, Jim.

Told with spare eloquence and mirroring the true stories of countless slave women, MY JIM re-creates one of the most controversial characters in American literature.

Click here to check out more about MY JIM.


 
Read our reviews and features here. Read our reviews and features here. Read the reviews and features here.

This Week's Reviews and Features

TERRIFY NO MORE by Gary A. Haugen (Nonfiction)
Reviewed by Lisa Ann Cockrel
This true story is set in Svay Pak, a remote village in Cambodia known for its child sex trade. Gary Haugen and the International Justice Mission (IJM) take readers on an undercover investigation as they infiltrate brothels to gather evidence that many Cambodians and Westerners alike are buying and abusing young girls.

DARK EYE by William Bernhardt (Thriller)
Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
As her detective colleagues begin searching for a serial killer who methodically stalks and terrorizes his female victims, Las Vegas police psychologist Susan Pulaski loses her job. Her life is spinning out of control and all seems hopeless --- until Pulaski meets the one person who can lead her into the mind of a madman no one else can understand.

THE VILLA OF MYSTERIES by David Hewson (Suspense)
Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
In Rome's crowded Campo dei Fiori, a woman rushes up to two police officers, insisting that her sixteen-year-old daughter has just been abducted. Detective Nic Costa intervenes --- because he knows that in the morgue at Rome's police headquarters, a forensic pathologist is examining the strange, mummified corpse of another girl, whose disappearance and death bear haunting similarities.

THE FINAL SOLUTION: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon (Mystery)
Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds
In Michael Chabon's new novella, an African gray parrot with an ability to recite mysterious chains of German numbers rouses the one and only Sherlock Holmes out of his aged decrepitude and uncomfortable retirement as a solitary beekeeper.

I'LL BE WATCHING YOU by Andrea Kane (Romantic Suspense)
Reviewed by Maggie Harding
Taylor Halstead, the victim of an attempted rape, is unable to prevent her cousin Stephanie from going on a luxury yacht with Gordon (Stephanie's boyfriend and Taylor's attacker). When the yacht explodes, killing all aboard, Taylor starts receiving threatening phone calls and emails from someone who has made her the object of his obsessions.

TORPEDO JUICE by Tim Dorsey (Fiction)
Reviewed by Bob Rhubart
Tim Dorsey's hilarious sixth novel marks the return of Serge A. Storms and provides yet another welcome and wonderful excursion into the land famous for oranges, gators, an animated rodent, hanging chads, and hurricanes.

LOS ANGELES by Peter Moore Smith (Suspense)
Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Angel Veronchek embarks on a dangerous and desperate quest to find his new neighbor Angela, who has suddenly vanished. Angel becomes obsessed with this mysterious woman and has fallen in love with her, but he knows nearly nothing about her.

THE VIRGIN by Erik Barmack (Fiction)
Reviewed by Eileen Zimmerman Nicol
When Joseph Braun lands a spot on the hot new reality TV show "The Virgin," in which a twenty-six-year old beauty named Madison offers to relinquish her virginity, he soon realizes that he's in way over his head. And to make matters even juicier, Madison may be holding secrets of her own.

ASTRO TURF: The Private Life of Rocket Science, by M.G. Lord (Memoir)
Reviewed by Andi Shechter
During the late 1960s, while M. G. Lord was becoming a teenager in Southern California and her mother was dying of cancer, Lord's father, a rocket engineer, disappeared into his work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Thirty years later, Lord found herself reporting on the JPL, triggering childhood memories and a desire to revisit her past as a way of understanding the culture of space engineers.

Read this week's reviews and features here.


 
Read more about Joseph Finder and PARANOIA here. Read more about GARDEN OF BEASTS here. Read more about THE TRUE AND OUTSTANDING ADVENTURES OF THE HUNT SISTERS here.

New in Paperback for January

January's roundup of New in Paperback titles includes PARANOIA, Joseph Finder's exciting and fast-paced thriller of corporate espionage; GARDEN OF BEASTS, the first historical novel by suspense/thriller author Jeffery Deaver; THE TRUE AND OUTSTANDING ADVENTURES OF THE HUNT SISTERS, Elisabeth Robinson's hilarious and heartfelt debut novel about the relationship between two sisters and the struggles they face; LITTLE CHILDREN, the New York Times bestseller by Tom Perrotta that satirizes suburbanites "trapped in Kidworld"; and 1968, Mark Kurlansky's examination of that pivotal year in world history.

Read our more than 30 January New in Paperback titles here.
 

TOOL & DIE by Sarah Graves: See What Readers Had to Say

Read our Reader Comments about TOOL & DIE by Sarah Graves. It definitely got some raves --- and there are readers ready to explore the entire Home Repair is Homicide series after reading this 8th book in the series!

 


 

Click here to see readers' comments about TOOL & DIE.


 

AuthorsOnTheWeb.com Author Bibliographies

Want to read the work of your favorite authors in the order it was written? The Author Bibliographies that we have on AuthorsOnTheWeb.com may help. This is information that is not easily found, but Tom Donadio, our Editorial Manager, updated and revised the Author Bibliographies, complete with copyright dates so you might organize your reading.

Take a look at the Author Bibliographies here.


 

Bookreporter.com Blog

 
Bookstore Shopping: Let the Games Begin
 
Let It Snow; I'm Reading
 
Reading Italian (Grisham Style), Tsunami Aid (Author Style) and Celebs (Without Style)
 
Note: You can read past blogs here as well.
 
Sign up here to get notified each time this blog is updated.
Click here to read the Bookreporter.com blog.
 
Read a list of upcoming books here. Read our Book Awards feature here. Sign up for Author Newsletters here.
Poll: Upcoming Releases

Poll:

Would you like to see a list of books that are "soon to be published" posted in the bookstore when you shop for books?

Yes
No
Not sure

Do you think you would buy more books if you knew what was going to be coming out in the upcoming weeks?

Yes
No
Not sure

Answer the Poll here.

 
Question of the Week: Name Those Authors

Question: Name up to three authors who you would like to be made aware of upcoming releases for.

Please note: Our next question update will be on February 4th.

Answer the Question of the Week here.


 
Read more about THE BROKER here. Read more about IN MEMORY OF RUNNING here.
Word of Mouth: Tell Us What You're Reading -- TWO Prizes!

Tell us what books YOU are reading and loving --- or even those you don't.

This week we have some great prizes: FIVE readers each will win a copy of THE BROKER by John Grisham and THE MEMORY OF RUNNING by Ron McLarty. Please note that our next Word of Mouth update will be on February 4th.

Need more details about Word of Mouth? Click here.

 

As always, here are a few housekeeping notes. If you are seeing this newsletter in a text version, and would prefer to see the graphics, you can either read it online (see the link on the upper right) or change your preferences below.

Those of you who wish to send mail to Bookreporter.com, please see the form on the Write to Us page. We were forced to move to this format after we were inundated with SPAM at the other address. If you would like to reach me, please write [email protected]. Writing any of the respond buttons below will not get to us.

Quick observation --- we have noticed that many of you have been changing your Internet providers in the past month. If you do, please be sure to "take us along" by signing up for the newsletter in your new name!

Happy reading! Don't forget to forward this newsletter to a friend or to visit our other websites from TheBookReportNetwork.com: ReadingGroupGuides.com, AuthorsOnTheWeb.com, FaithfulReader.com, AuthorYellowPages.com, Teenreads.com, and Kidsreads.com.

--- Carol Fitzgerald ([email protected])

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