genre: adult fiction | Scribbles & Wanderlust | Page 16

Tag: genre: adult fiction
- Upcoming Books! [17]
  
  Posted at 8:51 pm by Laura, on May 13, 2012
  
  Title: A Confusion of Princes
  Author: Garth Nix
  Genre: young adult, sci-fi, fantasy
  Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Books
  Publishing Date: May 15
  Summary: You’d think being a privileged Prince in a vast intergalactic Empire would be about as good as it gets. But it isn’t as great as it sounds. For one thing, Princes are always in danger. Their greatest threat? Other Princes. Khemri discovers that the moment he is proclaimed a Prince.
  He also discovers mysteries within the hidden workings of the Empire. Dispatched on a secret mission, Khemri comes across the ruins of a space battle. In the midst of it all he meets a young woman named Raine, who will challenge his view of the Empire, of Princes, and of himself.
  
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  Title: The Chemistry of Tears
  Author: Peter Carey
  Genre: historical fiction
  Publisher: Knopf Doubleday
  Publishing Date: May 15
  Summary: London 2010: Catherine Gehrig, conservator at the Swinburne museum, learns of the sudden death of her colleague and lover of thirteen years. As the mistress of a married man, she must struggle to keep the depth of her anguish to herself. The one other person who knows Catherine’s secret—her boss—arranges for her to be given a special project away from prying eyes in the museum’s Annexe. Usually controlled and rational, but now mad with grief, Catherine reluctantly unpacks an extraordinary, eerie automaton that she has been charged with bringing back to life.
  As she begins to piece together the clockwork puzzle, she also uncovers a series of notebooks written by the mechanical creature’s original owner: a nineteenth-century Englishman, Henry Brandling, who traveled to Germany to commission it as a magical amusement for his consumptive son. But it is Catherine, nearly two hundred years later, who will find comfort and wonder in Henry’s story. And it is the automaton, in its beautiful, uncanny imitation of life, that will link two strangers confronted with the mysteries of creation, the miracle and catastrophe of human invention, and the body’s astonishing chemistry of love and feeling.
  
  ~
  
  Title: As the Crow Flies
  Author: Craig Johnson
  Genre: mystery
  Publisher: Viking Adult
  Publishing Date: May 15
  Summary: Embarking on his eighth adventure, Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire has a more important matter on his mind than cowboys and criminals. His daughter, Cady, is getting married to the brother of his undersheriff, Victoria Moretti. Walt and old friend Henry Standing Bear are the de facto wedding planners and fear Cady’s wrath when the wedding locale arrangements go up in smoke two weeks before the big event.
  The pair set out to find a new site for the nuptials on the Cheyenne Reservation, but their scouting expedition ends in horror as they witness a young Crow woman plummeting from Painted Warrior’s majestic cliffs. It’s not Walt’s turf, but the newly appointed tribal police chief and Iraqi war veteran, the beautiful Lolo Long, shanghais him into helping with the investigation. Walt is stretched thin as he mentors Lolo, attempts to catch the bad guys, and performs the role of father of the bride.
  
  ~
  
  Happy reading!
  
  Posted in Upcoming Books | 0 Comments | Tagged genre: adult fiction, genre: fantasy, genre: fiction, genre: history, genre: mystery, genre: sci-fi, genre: young adult, upcoming books
- Upcoming Books! [16]
  
  Posted at 9:14 pm by Laura, on May 6, 2012
  
  Title: City of Lost Souls
  Author: Cassandra Clare
  Genre: fantasy, young adult
  Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
  Publishing Date: May 8
  Summary: The demon Lilith has been destroyed and Jace has been freed from her captivity. But when the Shadowhunters arrive to rescue him, they find only blood and broken glass. Not only is the boy Clary loves missing–but so is the boy she hates, Sebastian, the son of her father Valentine: a son determined to succeed where their father failed, and bring the Shadowhunters to their knees.
  No magic the Clave can summon can locate either boy, but Jace cannot stay away—not from Clary. When they meet again Clary discovers the horror Lilith’s dying magic has wrought—Jace is no longer the boy she loved. He and Sebastian are now bound to each other, and Jace has become what he most feared: a true servant of Valentine’s evil. The Clave is determined to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. Will the Shadowhunters hesitate to kill one of their own?
  Only a small band of Clary and Jace’s friends and family believe that Jace can still be saved — and that the fate of the Shadowhunters’ future may hinge on that salvation. They must defy the Clave and strike out on their own. Alec, Magnus, Simon and Isabelle must work together to save Jace: bargaining with the sinister Faerie Queen, contemplating deals with demons, and turning at last to the Iron Sisters, the reclusive and merciless weapons makers for the Shadowhunters, who tell them that no weapon on this earth can sever the bond between Sebastian and Jace. Their only chance of cutting Jace free is to challenge Heaven and Hell — a risk that could claim any, or all, of their lives.
  And they must do it without Clary. For Clary has gone into the heart of darkness, to play a dangerous game utterly alone. The price of losing the game is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she even still trust him? Or is he truly lost? What price is too high to pay, even for love?
  
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  Title: Home
  Author: Toni Morrison
  Genre: historical fiction
  Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  Publishing Date: May 8
  Summary: Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. His home may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from and that he’s hated all his life. As Frank revisits his memories from childhood and the war that have left him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he had thought he could never possess again.
  
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  Title: Bring Up the Bodies
  Author: Hilary Mantel
  Genre: historical fiction
  Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc
  Publishing Date: May 8
  Summary: Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.
  At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne’s head?
  
  Woo! Happy reading!
  
  Posted in Upcoming Books | 0 Comments | Tagged genre: adult fiction, genre: fantasy, genre: fiction, genre: history, genre: young adult, upcoming books
- Upcoming Books! [15]
  
  Posted at 3:28 pm by Laura, on April 29, 2012
  
  Title: Insurgent
  Author: Veronica Roth
  Genre: young adult, dystopian
  Publisher: HarperTeen
  Publishing Date: May 1
  Summary: One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.
  Tris’s initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.
  See my review of the first book in this trilogy, Divergent!
  
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  Title: The Proposal
  Author: Mary Balogh
  Genre: historical fiction, romance
  Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
  Publishing Date: May 1
  Summary: Gwendoline, Lady Muir, has seen her share of tragedy, especially since a freak accident took her husband much too soon. Content in a quiet life with friends and family, the young widow has no desire to marry again. But when Hugo, Lord Trentham, scoops her up in his arms after a fall, she feels a sensation that both shocks and emboldens her.
  Hugo never intends to kiss Lady Muir, and frankly, he judges her to be a spoiled, frivolous—if beautiful—aristocrat. He is a gentleman in name only: a soldier whose bravery earned him a title; a merchant’s son who inherited his wealth. He is happiest when working the land, but duty and title now demand that he finds a wife. He doesn’t wish to court Lady Muir, nor have any role in the society games her kind thrives upon. Yet Hugo has never craved a woman more; Gwen’s guileless manner, infectious laugh, and lovely face have ruined him for any other woman. He wants her, but will she have him?
  
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  Title: Death Comes Silently
  Author: Carolyn Hart
  Genre: mystery
  Publisher: Berkley Hardcover
  Publishing Date: May 2
  Summary: Winter has arrived in Broward’s Rock, South Carolina, and business has slowed for Annie Darling, owner of mystery bookstore Death on Demand. So when the island’s resident writer publishes the latest in her popular mystery series, Annie jumps at the chance to host a book signing, even though it conflicts with her shift at the local charity shop, Better Tomorrow.
  Luckily, fellow volunteer Gretchen Burkholt agrees to sub for her. The signing goes well, but Gretchen interrupts the event multiple times, leaving voice mails about scandalous news she’s dying to share. Even though Gretchen tends to be excitable, Annie heads over to Better Tomorrow, where she finds Gretchen dead on the floor, an axe by her side.
  Annie enlists the help of her husband, Max, to piece together a puzzle involving an overturned kayak, a stolen motorboat, a troubled love affair, and a reckless teenager. And she must tread carefully in her investigation, because a killer is on the loose, and that killer works well in the foggy days of winter…
  
  ~
  
  Happy reading!
  
  Posted in books, Upcoming Books | 0 Comments | Tagged books, genre: adult fiction, genre: dystopian, genre: fiction, genre: history, genre: mystery, genre: romance, genre: young adult, upcoming books
- 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.
  
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  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.
  
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  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.
  
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  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
- Upcoming Books! [12]
  
  Posted at 4:24 pm by Laura, on April 8, 2012
  Title: Angels of Vengeance
  Author: John Birmingham
  Genre: sci fi
  Publisher: Random House
  Publishing Date: April 10
  Summary: When an inexplicable wave of energy slammed into North America, millions died. In the rest of the world, wars erupted, borders vanished, and the powerful lost their grip on power. Against this backdrop, with a conflicted U.S. president struggling to make momentous decisions in Seattle and a madman fomenting rebellion in Texas, three women are fighting their own battles—for survival, justice, and revenge.
  
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  Title: The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
  Author: Jonathan Gottschall
  Genre: nonfiction
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  Publishing Date: April 10
  Summary: Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It’s easy to say that humans are “wired” for story, but why?
  In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life’s complex social problems—just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.
  Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic?
  
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  Title: Paris in Love: A Memoir
  Author: Eloisa James
  Genre: nonfiction
  Publisher: Random House
  Publishing Date: April 3
  Summary: With no classes to teach, no committee meetings to attend, no lawn to mow or cars to park, Eloisa revels in the ordinary pleasures of life—discovering corner museums that tourists overlook, chronicling Frenchwomen’s sartorial triumphs, walking from one end of Paris to another. She copes with her Italian husband’s notions of quality time; her two hilarious children, ages eleven and fifteen, as they navigate schools—not to mention puberty—in a foreign language; and her mother-in-law Marina’s raised eyebrow in the kitchen (even as Marina overfeeds Milo, the family dog).
  
  ~
  
  Are you a mystery fan? Simon & Schuster’s Atria Mystery Tour information is up – follow the authors and books on their tour across the country!
  
  ~
  
  ABA announced their Indie Choice winners!
  - fiction: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
  - nonfiction: Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton
  - debut: The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
  - YA:Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
  Happy reading!
  Posted in Upcoming Books | 0 Comments | Tagged genre: adult fiction, genre: fiction, genre: nonfiction, genre: sci-fi, upcoming books
- Book Review: “The Thirteenth Tale” by Diane Setterfield
  
  Posted at 4:39 pm by Laura, on March 28, 2012
  
  The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
  
  Biographer Margaret Lea returns one night to her apartment above her father’s antiquarian bookshop. On her steps she finds a letter. It is a hand-written request from one of Britain’s most prolific and well-loved novelists. Vida Winter, gravely ill, wants to recount her life story before it is too late, and she wants Margaret to be the one to capture her history. The request takes Margaret by surprise–she doesn’t know the author, nor has she read any of Miss Winter’s dozens of novels.
  
  Late one night while pondering whether to accept the task of recording Miss Winter’s personal story, Margaret begins to read her father’s rare copy of Miss Winter’s Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation. She is spellbound by the stories and confused when she realizes the book only contains twelve stories. Where is the thirteenth tale? Intrigued, Margaret agrees to meet Miss Winter and act as her biographer.
  
  As Vida Winter unfolds her story, she shares with Margaret the dark family secrets that she has long kept hidden as she remembers her days at Angelfield, the now burnt-out estate that was her childhood home. Margaret carefully records Miss Winter’s account and finds herself more and more deeply immersed in the strange and troubling story. In the end, both women have to confront their pasts and the weight of family secrets. As well as the ghosts that haunt them still.
  
  I read this book a few years ago and was absolutely in love with it. This is a novel for bibliophiles and neo-gothic lovers! The narrator, Margaret, is constantly lost in books and stories, and is more interested in fictional or dead lives than those of living, breathing humans. So when she accepts Miss Winter’s request, little did she know that she would come to care more and more for human companionship and stories outside of bound pages.
  
  There are so many elements of gothic literature within this work. Even though Miss Winter and Margaret blatantly state and share passions for Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Woman in White, The Turn of the Screw, and Dickens and Austen, each of these novels come into play within this book. I read this novel before I’d read Woman in White or Turn of the Screw, and I could still follow along just fine – there is nothing to fear! But after having read all the novels referenced, I had an uncanny feeling every time I noticed the parallels and similarities. It’s shocking, and so subtle that it is woven into the text brilliantly.
  
  The great thing about returning to this novel after a few years was that, once again, I was sucked into the mystery. I could not remember what the explosive ending was. I remembered twins and burning libraries and haunted governesses, and that the author really had something to say and needed to say it before her death. I remembered that Margaret experience episodes similar to that of Victorian women, and that the doctor politely laughed during her condition. And, of course, I remembered all the book love. Everything that is said about books, I wholeheartedly relate to. I’m sure other bookworms can, too.
  
  But the ending! Oh, all the tension and build-up was worth it! To experience that same shock and horror and heartbreak was wonderful. (Can you really say that?)
  
  Rating: ★★★★
  
  Goodreads: 3.9 of 5
  
  Posted in Reviews 2012 | 4 Comments | Tagged book review, genre: adult fiction, genre: fiction, genre: gothic, goodreads, review
- Upcoming Books! [9]
  
  Posted at 3:35 pm by Laura, on March 18, 2012
  Title: Stay Close
  Author: Harlan Coben
  Genre: mystery
  Publisher: Dutton
  Publishing Date: March 20
  Summary: Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Now she’s got two kids, a perfect husband, a picket fence, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer, but at age forty he finds himself in a dead- end job posing as a paparazzo pandering to celebrity-obsessed rich kids. Jack is a detective who can’t let go of a cold case-a local husband and father disappeared seventeen years ago, and Jack spends the anniversary every year visiting a house frozen in time, the missing man’s family still waiting, his slippers left by the recliner as if he might show up any moment to step into them.
  Three people living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect, will find that the past doesn’t recede. Even as the terrible consequences of long-ago events crash together in the present and threaten to ruin lives, they will come to the startling realization that they may not want to forget the past at all. And as each confronts the dark side of the American Dream- the boredom of a nice suburban life, the excitement of temptation, the desperation and hunger that can lurk behind even the prettiest facades- they will discover the hard truth that the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper-thin as a heartbeat.
  
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  Title: The Good Father
  Author: Noah Hawley
  Genre: fiction
  Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  Publishing Date: March 20
  Summary: An intense, psychological novel about one doctor’s suspense-filled quest to unlock the mind of a suspected political assassin: his twenty-year old son.
  As the Chief of Rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, Dr. Paul Allen’s specialty is diagnosing patients with conflicting symptoms, patients other doctors have given up on. He lives a contented life in Westport with his second wife and their twin sons—hard won after a failed marriage earlier in his career that produced a son named Daniel. In the harrowing opening scene of this provocative and affecting novel, Dr. Allen is home with his family when a televised news report announces that the Democratic candidate for president has been shot at a rally, and Daniel is caught on video as the assassin.
  Daniel Allen has always been a good kid—a decent student, popular—but, as a child of divorce, used to shuttling back and forth between parents, he is also something of a drifter. Which may be why, at the age of nineteen, he quietly drops out of Vassar and begins an aimless journey across the United States, during which he sheds his former skin and eventually even changes his name to Carter Allen Cash.
  
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  Title: Titanic Tragedy: A New Look at the Lost Liner
  Author: John Maxtone-Graham
  Genre: nonfiction
  Publisher: WW Norton & Company
  Publishing Date: March 19
  Summary: This is a book unlike any other. Rather than offering simply a detailed retelling of the Titanic sinking on her maiden voyage, John Maxtone-Graham devotes his considerable knowledge and impeccable prose to a discussion of salient, provocative, and rarely investigated components of the story, including dramatic survivors accounts of the events of the fateful night, the role of newly in-vented wireless telecommunication in the disaster, the construction and its ramifications at the famous Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, and the dawn rendezvous with the rescue ship Carpathia. Richly written and vividly detailed, this is the book Titanic buffs have been waiting for.
  
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  And now for some really big news of the week about upcoming 2012/2013 books!
  - Cassandra Clare (of The Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices fantasy series) has announced a new Shadowhunter series set in 2015 LA, The Dark Artifices. This week she was answering fans’ questions on her twitter @cassieclare about the possible TMI movie, the next ID book, and the future TDA.
  - Lisa Jewell’s BEFORE I MET HER, connecting 1920s Jazz Age London and 1990s Soho
  - Rachel Urquhart’s debut novel, THE VISIONIST, the story of a 15 year-old girl who sets fire to her family farm and finds refuge in an 1840s Shaker settlement
  - A Game of Thrones graphic novel (available March 27)
  Happy reading!
  Posted in Upcoming Books | 0 Comments | Tagged genre: adult fiction, genre: fiction, genre: history, genre: mystery, genre: nonfiction, history, upcoming books
- Book Review: “The Dressmaker” by Kate Alcott
  
  Posted at 8:07 am by Laura, on March 17, 2012
  
  The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott
  
  Tess, an aspiring seamstress, thinks she’s had an incredibly lucky break when she is hired by famous designer Lady Lucile Duff Gordon to be a personal maid on the Titanic’s doomed voyage. Once on board, Tess catches the eye of two men, one a roughly-hewn but kind sailor and the other an enigmatic Chicago millionaire. But on the fourth night, disaster strikes.
  
  Amidst the chaos and desperate urging of two very different suitors, Tess is one of the last people allowed on a lifeboat. Tess’s sailor also manages to survive unharmed, witness to Lady Duff Gordon’s questionable actions during the tragedy. Others—including the gallant Midwestern tycoon—are not so lucky.
  
  On dry land, rumors about the survivors begin to circulate, and Lady Duff Gordon quickly becomes the subject of media scorn and later, the hearings on the Titanic. Set against a historical tragedy but told from a completely fresh angle, The Dressmaker is an atmospheric delight filled with all the period’s glitz and glamour, all the raw feelings of a national tragedy and all the contradictory emotions of young love.
  
  What a thrill! This historical novel had everything I could ever hope for: a few days’ events on the Titanic, the sinking and its utter chaos, the rescue on the Carpathia, the hearings that followed the arrival in New York City, the fashion industry and its fluctuations in 1912, suffragists and women’s rights movements, journalism tactics, the law of the time, British class divisions and America’s lack-thereof, and finally a love triangle.
  
  Phew.
  
  What sets The Dressmaker apart from other Titanic literature is Alcott’s focus on the aftermath of the sinking, rather than setting sail and the events on the ship. Roughly twenty pages were spent on the ship, and the following 280 included everything about the rescue, the hearings, and historical context of the changing dynamics in New York City. So many newspaper headlines, so many specific characters, several recognizable events – I was completely fascinated and had to put the book down several times to research the accuracy (rest assured, Alcott’s extremely accurate on the hearings) and information on the characters presented. In fact, in Alcott’s author’s note, she states:
  
  Much of the testimony in this book is taken directly from the transcripts of the U.S. Senate hearings in the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic.
  
  It was from these hearings that ocean-liners are now required to have equipped and experienced crew, a sufficient number of lifeboats, and lifeboat drills before departure.
  
  The sinking of the Titanic has always been an interest of mine, but I was wholly ignorant of the hearings or even what happened to all the survivors. I know more about the ship itself than the people. This book sheds light to the era, dropping familiar names, places, and events, providing a complete cultural and historical experience.
  
  For any who may avoid the novel because of the hint of a love triangle, do not worry. That aspect of the story is most certainly not the main point or dominant thread of the novel. Tess is a strong character, a bold woman set to escape the class system and become independent. Imagine all the things she’s exposed to in New York City, a place without classes and full of opportunity. She seizes these moments.
  
  Rating: ★★★★★
  
  Goodreads: 3.44 of 5
  
  EDIT: “The Smithsonian” magazine has a whole article dedicated to the Titanic and its survivors. In this article is a spotlight on twins Michel and Edmond, both of whom are mentioned in this novel as well. I really do mean it when I say Alcott worked hard for historical accuracy!
  
  Posted in Reviews 2012 | 0 Comments | Tagged book review, books, genre: adult fiction, genre: fiction, genre: history, genre: mystery, genre: romance, genre: young adult, goodreads, review
- Upcoming Books! [8]
  
  Posted at 4:03 pm by Laura, on March 11, 2012
  
  Title: The Gods of Gotham
  Author: Lyndsay Faye
  Genre: mystery
  Publisher: Penguin
  Publishing Date: March 15
  Summary: 1845. New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever.
  Timothy Wilde tends bar near the Exchange, fantasizing about the day he has enough money to win the girl of his dreams. But when his dreams literally incinerate in a fire devastating downtown Manhattan, he finds himself disfigured, unemployed, and homeless. His older brother obtains Timothy a job in the newly minted NYPD, but he is highly skeptical of this new “police force.” And he is less than thrilled that his new beat is the notoriously down-and-out Sixth Ward-at the border of Five Points, the world’s most notorious slum.
  One night while making his rounds, Wilde literally runs into a little slip of a girl-a girl not more than ten years old-dashing through the dark in her nightshift . . . covered head to toe in blood.
  Timothy knows he should take the girl to the House of Refuge, yet he can’t bring himself to abandon her. Instead, he takes her home, where she spins wild stories, claiming that dozens of bodies are buried in the forest north of 23rd Street. Timothy isn’t sure whether to believe her or not, but, as the truth unfolds, the reluctant copper star finds himself engaged in a battle for justice that nearly costs him his brother, his romantic obsession, and his own life.
  
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  Title: Some Assembly Required
  Author: Anne Lamott
  Genre: nonfiction
  Publisher: Riverhead Books
  Publishing Date: March 20
  Summary: In Some Assembly Required, Anne Lamott enters a new and unexpected chapter of her own life: grandmotherhood.
  Stunned to learn that her son, Sam, is about to become a father at nineteen, Lamott begins a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax’s life.
  In careful and often hilarious detail, Lamott and Sam-about whom she first wrote so movingly in Operating Instructions-struggle to balance their changing roles with the demands of college and work, as they both forge new relationships with Jax’s mother, who has her own ideas about how to raise a child. Lamott writes about the complex feelings that Jax fosters in her, recalling her own experiences with Sam when she was a single mother. Over the course of the year, the rhythms of life, death, family, and friends unfold in surprising and joyful ways.
  By turns poignant and funny, honest and touching, Some Assembly Required is the true story of how the birth of a baby changes a family-as this book will change everyone who reads it.
  
  ~
  
  Title: The Book of Jonas
  Author: Stephen Dau
  Genre: fiction
  Publisher: Blue Rider Press
  Publishing Date: March 15
  Summary: Jonas is fifteen when his family is killed during an errant U.S. military operation in an unnamed Muslim country. With the help of an international relief organization, he is sent to America, where he struggles to assimilate-foster family, school, a first love. Eventually, he tells a court-mandated counselor and therapist about a U.S. soldier, Christopher Henderson, responsible for saving his life on the tragic night in question. Christopher’s mother, Rose, has dedicated her life to finding out what really happened to her son, who disappeared after the raid in which Jonas’ village was destroyed. When Jonas meets Rose, a shocking and painful secret gradually surfaces from the past, and builds to a shattering conclusion that haunts long after the final page. Told in spare, evocative prose, The Book of Jonas is about memory, about the terrible choices made during war, and about what happens when foreign disaster appears at our own doorstep. It is a rare and virtuosic novel from an exciting new writer to watch.
  
  ~
  
  Title: The Girl Next Door
  Author: Brad Parks
  Genre: mystery
  Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
  Publishing Date: March 13
  Summary: Reading his own newspaper’s obituaries, veteran reporter Carter Ross comes across that of a woman named Nancy Marino, who was the victim of a hit-and-run while she was on the job delivering copies of that very paper, the Eagle-Examiner. Struck by the opportunity to write a heroic piece about an everyday woman killed too young, he heads to her wake to gather tributes and anecdotes. It’s the last place Ross expects to find controversy—which is exactly what happens when one of Nancy’s sisters convinces him that the accident might not have been accidental at all.
  It turns out that the kind and generous Nancy may have made a few enemies, starting with her boss at the diner where she was a part-time waitress, and even including the publisher of the Eagle-Examiner. Carter’s investigation of this seemingly simple story soon has him in big trouble with his full-time editor and sometime girlfriend, Tina Thompson, not to mention the rest of his bosses at the paper, but he can’t let it go—the story is just too good, and it keeps getting better. But will his nose for trouble finally take him too far?
  
  ~
  
  Feel free to browse various publishers’ websites and the Publisher’s Weekly website for more publications! There are several upcoming books out for the pickings this week!
  
  Posted in Upcoming Books | 0 Comments | Tagged genre: adult fiction, genre: fiction, genre: history, genre: mystery, genre: nonfiction, upcoming books
- PW Tip Sheet: This Week in History
  
  Posted at 11:31 am by Laura, on March 10, 2012
  
  Publisher’s Weekly – Marc Schultz
  
  The historical novel is a perennial fixture in the book business, a nimble genre that works its way into all corners of the storytelling ecosystem: bestseller lists, hot new subgenres, movie adaptations and, of course, the literary canon. Historicals make up more than half of the just-released longlist for the UK’s Orange Prize for woman-penned fiction, and scripted historicals are in full force on TV (Downton Abbey, Mad Men) and at the movies (2011 Best Picture winner The Artist was one of four historicals nominated for the honor—five, if you count Midnight in Paris). This week, they’re also all over the On-Sale Calendar.
  
  I’m a huge fan of historical novels! There’s something fun and thrilling about taking historical fact, throwing in fictional characters or turn-of-events, and creating a new piece. Sometimes the novels can be silly, and other times there are gems that convince you of plausibility.
  
  This list contains historical paranormal, historical romance, historical fiction, historical mystery, and even “straight-up” history in the nonfiction list. Michael Morpurgo (author of War Horse) is also mentioned in his latest young reader book about a cat on the Titanic.
  
  Posted in books, Link | 0 Comments | Tagged books, genre: adult fiction, genre: children, genre: fiction, genre: history, history, magazine, news
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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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