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  • Author Archives: Laura

    • Upcoming Books! [14]

      Posted at 7:30 am by Laura, on April 22, 2012

      Title: The Good Father
      Author: Diane Chamberlain
      Genre: fiction
      Publisher: Mira
      Publishing Date: April 24
      Summary: Four years ago, nineteen-year-old Travis Brown made a choice: to raise his newborn daughter on his own. While most of his friends were out partying and meeting girls, Travis was at home, changing diapers and worrying about keeping food on the table. But he’s never regretted his decision. Bella is the light of his life. The reason behind every move he makes. And so far, she is fed. Cared for. Safe.But when Travis loses his construction job and his home, the security he’s worked so hard to create for Bella begins to crumble….
      Then a miracle.
      A job in Raleigh has the power to turn their fortunes around. It has to. But when Travis arrives in Raleigh, there is no job, only an offer to participate in a onetime criminal act that promises quick money and no repercussions.With nowhere else to turn, Travis must make another choice for his daughter’s sake. Even if it means he might lose her.

      ~

      Title: Unraveling
      Author: Elizabeth Norris
      Genre: young adult, paranormal
      Publisher: Balzer + Bray
      Publishing Date: April 24
      Summary: Two days before the start of her junior year, seventeen-year-old Janelle Tenner is hit by a pickup truck and killed—as in blinding light, scenes of her life flashing before her, and then nothing. Except the next thing she knows, she’s opening her eyes to find Ben Michaels, a loner from her high school whom Janelle has never talked to, leaning over her. And even though it isn’t possible, she knows—with every fiber of her being—that Ben has somehow brought her back to life.
      But her revival, and Ben’s possible role in it, is only the first of the puzzles that Janelle must solve. While snooping in her FBI agent father’s files for clues about her accident, she uncovers a clock that seems to be counting down to something—but to what? And when someone close to Janelle is killed, she can no longer deny what’s right in front of her: Everything that’s happened—the accident, the murder, the countdown clock, Ben’s sudden appearance in her life—points to the end of life as she knows it. And as the clock ticks down, she realizes that if she wants to put a stop to the end of the world, she’s going to need to uncover Ben’s secrets—and keep from falling in love with him in the process.

      ~

      Title: The Elizabethans
      Author: A.N. Wilson
      Genre: history, nonfiction
      Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
      Publishing Date: April 24
      Summary: The acknowledged master of the all-encompassing single volume of history demonstrates the profound impact the Elizabethan age has had on contemporary Britain.
      With all the panoramic sweep of his bestselling study of The Victorians, A. N. Wilson relates the exhilarating story of the Elizabethan Age. It was a time of exceptional creativity, wealth creation and political expansion. It was also a period of English history more remarkable than any other for the technicolour personalities of its leading participants.

      ~

      Books to look forward to later in 2012 and in 2013!

      • Laura L. McNeal’s Dollbaby, a debut novel pitched as in the tradition of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, set in 1964, in which a girl from the Pacific Northwest visits her estranged grandmother in New Orleans and meets Dollbaby, the maid who guides her through the ghosts of her grandmother’s past and the racial turmoil that may tear the family apart
      • Erin Kelly’s third novel The Burning Air, a psychological thriller about the family of a private school headmaster and the child he passes over for a scholarship, who spends years constructing a spectacular revenge plot against the entire family
      • Charles Graeber’s The Good Nurse, the explosive story about serial killing nurse Charles Cullen and the nine hospitals that covered up his crimes over 15 years

      Happy reading!

      Posted in Upcoming Books | 0 Comments | Tagged books, genre: adult fiction, genre: fantasy, genre: fiction, genre: history, genre: nonfiction, genre: young adult, upcoming books
    • HMH Adds Tie-Ins to Hobbit List – PW

      Posted at 10:11 am by Laura, on April 20, 2012

      Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Adds Tie-Ins to Hobbit List – Publishers Weekly – Karen Raugust

      Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, longtime U.S. publisher of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has secured the U.S. rights to release tie-in books for the films The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again. The rights come from Harper UK, the global master tie-in publisher for the films, licensed by Warner Bros. Consumer Products.

      Five titles will be released for Lord of the Rings fans, including a movie guide and a photo storybook. If you happen to be a LotR fan, you may already know this. Might as well join in the excitement!

      Posted in Link | 0 Comments | Tagged books, magazine, news
    • Scholastic’s Summer Reading Challenge

      Posted at 10:39 am by Laura, on April 19, 2012

      Are you an educator? Do you have children – or babysit children – who love to read? Scholastic’s posted their Summer Challenge Titles in the Teacher Store. Everything can be searched by price and grade level. For instance, To Kill a Mockingbird and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are recommended for 12th grade, while 3rd graders can read Judy Moody Saves the World and Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Cake.

      Even if you’re not an educator, parent, or babysitter, take a look at what Scholastic suggests for your new summer reads! Buy them from Scholastic, any chain bookstore, an indie bookstore, or check them out at your local library!

      Thank you Scholastic for providing the information.

      Posted in books, library | 0 Comments | Tagged books, library, publishing
    • London Book Fair 2012: The Great Debate: Will Publishers Perish? – PW

      Posted at 7:33 pm by Laura, on April 17, 2012

      London Book Fair 2012: The Great Debate: Will Publishers Perish? – Publishers Weekly – Andrew Albanese

      I certainly hope not!

      Will today’s existing conglomerates continue to dominate the future of publishing? Or, will technology enable a rising tide of upstarts and independents that will forever change the publishing landscape? That was the question at the heart of the London Book Fair’s Second Annual Great Debate, which put forth the following resolution: In the fight for survival, outsiders and startups are taking on today’s heavyweights and will ultimately deliver a knockout punch.

      […]

      While the two sides obviously have some genuine disagreement, it was quite obvious that the resolution was designed to be provocative, and the two sides were playing their parts. In fact, it was clear that both sides believed the future does not hold a knockout blow. Throughout a brief question and answer period, both sides spoke of the value of new technology and traditional publishing have to offer, and occasionally seemed to argue the other’s point.

      See what each of the sides say!

      Posted in Link, publishing | 0 Comments | Tagged news, publishing
    • 2012 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced – NYT

      Posted at 2:28 pm by Laura, on April 16, 2012

      2012 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced – New York Times

      The 2012 Pulitzer Prizes, celebrating achievement in newspaper and online journalism, literature, nonfiction and musical composition, were announced Monday afternoon at Columbia University in New York. The prizes, given annually since 1917, are awarded in 21 categories.

      No fiction winner, but there is a nonfiction winner, poetry winner, and a biography winner. Even better: the poetry winner came from an independent press!

      Posted in books, Link, publishing | 0 Comments | Tagged awards, books, genre: nonfiction, genre: poetry, news, newspaper, publishing
    • Upcoming Books! [13]

      Posted at 7:19 pm by Laura, on April 15, 2012

      Title: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened
      Author: Jenny Lawson / The Bloggess
      Genre: nonfiction
      Publisher: Amy Einhorn Putnam
      Publishing Date: April 17
      Summary: For fans of Tina Fey and David Sedaris-Internet star Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, makes her literary debut.
      When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father (a professional taxidermist who created dead-animal hand puppets) and a childhood of wearing winter shoes made out of used bread sacks. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it.
      Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter are the perfect comedic foils to her absurdities, and help her to uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments-the ones we want to pretend never happened-are the very same moments that make us the people we are today.

      ~

      Title: White Horse
      Author: Alex Adams
      Genre: fiction, post-apocalyptic
      Publisher: Atria / Emily Bestler Books
      Publishing Date: April17
      Summary: Thirty-year-old Zoe leads an ordinary life until the end of the world arrives. She is cleaning cages and floors at Pope Pharmaceuticals when the President of the United States announces that human beings are no longer a viable species. When Zoe realizes that everyone she loves is disappearing, she starts running. Scared and alone in a shockingly changed world, she embarks on a remarkable journey of survival and redemption. Along the way, Zoe comes to see that humans are not defined by their genetic code, but rather by their actions and choices. White Horse offers hope for a broken world, where love can lead to the most unexpected places.

      ~

      Title: The Innocent
      Author: David Baldacci
      Genre: mystery
      Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
      Publishing Date: April 17
      Summary: It begins with a hit gone wrong. Robie is dispatched to eliminate a target unusually close to home in Washington, D.C. But something about this mission doesn’t seem right to Robie, and he does the unthinkable. He refuses to kill. Now, Robie becomes a target himself and must escape from his own people.
      Fleeing the scene, Robie crosses paths with a wayward teenage girl, a fourteen-year-old runaway from a foster home. But she isn’t an ordinary runaway-her parents were murdered, and her own life is in danger. Against all of his professional habits, Robie rescues her and finds he can’t walk away. He needs to help her.
      Even worse, the more Robie learns about the girl, the more he’s convinced she is at the center of a vast cover-up, one that may explain her parents’ deaths and stretch to unimaginable levels of power.
      Now, Robie may have to step out of the shadows in order to save this girl’s life . . . and perhaps his own.

      ~

      Remember to vote for me in the Independent Book Blogger Awards!

      Anyone getting ready to pick up their World Book Night books? I’m looking forward to the event!

      Happy reading!

      Posted in Upcoming Books | 0 Comments | Tagged awards, books, genre: fiction, genre: mystery, genre: nonfiction, goodreads, upcoming books, world book night
    • The Broad Strokes of the Hachette, HarperCollins and S&S Price-Fixing Settlement – PW

      Posted at 10:14 pm by Laura, on April 12, 2012

      The Broad Strokes of the Hachette, HarperCollins and S&S Price-Fixing Settlement – Publisher’s Weekly – Andrew Albanese & Rachel Deahl

      FINALLY. Need an understanding of what went down yesterday with the DOJ? Publisher’s Weekly wonderfully lays it out.

      Three publishers—Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster—have agreed to a proposed settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to settle federal claims of price fixing regarding e-books. PW takes an initial look at the broad strokes of the deal, and what it means for the settling publishers.

      They have the terms, compliance, timing, and reaction. Definitely take a look at it.

      Posted in books, Link, publishing | 0 Comments | Tagged books, ebooks, magazine, news, newspaper, publishing
    • Hachette Book Group Announces JKR Title & Release Date

      Posted at 10:19 am by Laura, on April 12, 2012

      Breaking News! Hachette Book Group announced JK Rowling’s new book, The Casual Vacancy,  will be in stores September 27!

      Posted in Link, publishing | 0 Comments | Tagged authors, books, news, publishing
    • Independent Book Bloggers Awards!

      Posted at 10:37 am by Laura, on April 10, 2012

      Vote for me here and here (on my homepage!) to win in the Publishing Industry category! Voting ends April 23 at midnight ET!

      Thank you, everyone.

      Posted in Update Post | 0 Comments | Tagged awards, books, publishing
    • Publisher Romances the Web – WSJ

      Posted at 8:50 pm by Laura, on April 9, 2012

      Publisher Romances the Web – The Wall Street Journal – Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

      In a move that further thins the line between book publishing and book retailing, Sourcebooks Inc., a leading independent publisher, is launching an online bookstore this week focused on its romance titles.

      Really great read! Downside, though, is that you need to be a subscriber of the WSJ in order to read the rest. You’ve been warned! In short, readers of romance novels will get to converse with the authors through live chat and other nifty things.

      Posted in Link, publishing | 0 Comments | Tagged genre: romance, news, newspaper, publishing, technology
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    • Hello, I’m Laura!

      I'm a bookish bookworm and book hoarder. By day I'm a literary agent, and by night I'm forever rearranging my bookshelves. I could talk your ear off about Gothic literature, and in my past life people thought I'd become a professional musician. I have a fluffy black cat named Rossetti, I love to travel, tea is my drink of choice, British TV is the best, and I'm always down for chips-and-queso nights. Welcome to Scribbles & Wanderlust! Grab your favorite hot beverage and let's chat books!
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