GIVEAWAY: Second Firsts: Live, Laugh, and Love Again, ends 11/18

Seconds Firsts: Live, Laugh and Love Again is the newest from Christina Rasmussen, and I have a copy for two of my lucky readers to win.

Official synopsis:
After studying to become a therapist and crisis intervention counselor - even doing her master's thesis on the stages of bereavement - Christina Rasmussen thought she knew grief. But it wasn't until losing her husband to cancer in her early 30s that she truly understood the depths of sorrow and pain that come with it.

Using the knowledge she gained while wading through her own grief and researching hundreds of neuroscience books, Rasmussen began to look at these experiences in a new way. She realized that grief plunges you into a gap between worlds: the world before trauma and the world after trauma. She also realized how easy it is to become lost in this gap.

In Second Firsts, Rasmussen walks readers through a proven process that helps them break the spiral of pain and create a safe space for their post-grief life to enter. Her method, which she has used successfully online and offline with thousands of clients, is based on the science of neuroplasticity and focuses on consciously releasing pain in ways that both honor suffering and rewire the brain to experience the world in a new way.

With understanding and empathy, Rasmussen uses practical exercises and stories drawn from her own life and the lives of her clients to guide readers through five stages of opening up to life so that they can come out of grief as a new person and start to experience life again, essentially for the first time.
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About the author: Christina Rasmussen is on a crusade to change the way we live after loss. As the founder of Second Firsts, an organization to help people create a pathway back to life after loss, Christina spends her time speaking, coaching, and helping thousands of people rebuild, reclaim, and relaunch their lives using the most powerful tool for personal reinvention: the human mind. Her personal story and fresh approach to life after loss has garnered international attention. She writes for the Huffington Post, she's been featured as a Woman Working to Do Good in the White House Blog, and she was named the Leading Mom in Business by StartupNation.




GIVEAWAY:

Two print copies will be given away. Fill out the Rafflecopter form below to enter. Contest ends Monday, November 18th, at 11:59pm EST, and winners will be notified by email on November 19th and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner(s) will be chosen. U.S./Canada only, please.

Good luck!

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Book Review: The Whole Golden World

The Whole Golden World, by Kristina Riggle.

She'd noticed he'd cut his hair shorter, which disappointed her. Already he looked less like himself. No doubt his lawyer had made him do it, that lady lawyer who probably thought shaggy hair made him look dangerous. Like she'd been some kind of helpless girl in a silent movie, tied to the railroad tracks while he cackled. That's what no one understood. She was no victim. She was a grown woman trapped in a body too young for anyone to take her seriously.

That quick, sad smile told her all she needed to know. Despite the courts saying it was a crime, despite her parents locking her down like she herself was a criminal, despite the gossip and vandals and spewing hate from random strangers ... he loved her anyway. Against the odds and against all sense. She lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders, as if the orchestra conductor had just raised her baton.

The judge cleared his throat and the air int he room seemed to freeze, as everyone waited for it all to begin.

Kristina Riggle is a Michigan author who always writes great books, so I was excited to receive a copy of her newest, The Whole Golden World. I have previously reviewed Keepsake (2012) and Things We Didn't Say (2011) by her, and enjoyed both of them; this novel was no exception.

Official synopsis:
Seventeen-year-old Morgan Monetti shocks her parents and her community with one simple act: She chooses to stand by the man everyone else believes has exploited her—popular high school teacher TJ Hill. Quietly walking across a crowded courtroom to sit behind TJ, and not beside her parents, she announces herself as the adult she believes herself to be.

But her mother, Dinah, wants justice. Dinah is a fighter, and she believes with all her heart and soul that TJ is a man who took advantage of her daughter. He is a criminal who should be brought to justice, no matter what the cost to his family.

Rain, TJ's wife, is shocked that her handsome, loving, respected husband has been accused of a terrible crime. But has her desperation to start a family closed her eyes to the fault lines in her marriage? And can she face the painful truths about herself and her husband?

Told from the perspectives of these three remarkable women, The Whole Golden World navigates the precarious territory between childhood and adulthood, raising questions about love and manipulation, marriage and motherhood, consent and responsibility. It's a novel both shocking and unforgettable in its power.
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This novel could be based on events ripped from the headlines: we've all seen the articles about teachers "seducing" their students, so they say, and secretly wondered why a 30-40+ man or woman would do that. This book provides back story, and shows exactly how Morgan and Mr. Hill (TJ's) affair started; TJ was unhappy at home, because his wife wanted a baby and they were unable to conceive. Morgan was tired of being the responsible child, always looking after her younger twin brothers. She was also lonely after her boyfriend broke up with her, and she had a bit of a crush on Mr. Hill.

Riggle chooses to tell the story from three points-of-view: Morgan's; her mother, Dinah's; and TJ's wife, Rain's. This was a smart thing to do, in my opinion, because we get to learn so much about each of these characters, and see why they make the choices and decisions that they do.

It was also interesting to see how Morgan didn't think she was manipulated by TJ. Everyone else, including her parents, did; but Morgan's opinion on this eventually begins to change once she realizes how she actually was treated by TJ, and how he is still manipulating her now, even as the case goes to trial.

4.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received an advance reader's edition of this novel for reviewing purposes. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

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Book Review: What Nora Knew

What Nora Knew, by Linda Yellin.

"See, that's what's intriguing about you. I never know what you're going to say. I'd have taken you for a loves-surprises woman."

"Really?" I liked that self-image. Maybe someday I'd adopt it.

"What's interesting about knowing an ending?" "Well, in Sleepless in Seattle, your supposed number one favorite movie, we know Meg will end up with Tom. But it's not about who she's going to end up with. We still want to keep watching. We're mesmerized by the journey."

Cameron seemed to be considering my comment, making a mental note. "Maybe the mystery isn't who we're supposed to be with in life," he said, "but what's keeping us from recognizing them."

The title of this book drew me in, as I'm a big fan of Nora Ephron's movies, and I was curious as to how she tied in to the novel. The book follows Molly, who is toiling away at a writing job she sometimes hates, and dating the "dependable" Russell, whom she likes but isn't sure she loves. She meets a fellow writer, Cameron, and is at first annoyed by him; later, however, she can't stop thinking about him, and starts to wonder why.

Official synopsis:
Molly Hallberg is a thirty-nine-year-old divorced writer living in New York City who wants her own column, a Wikipedia entry, and to never end up in her family’s Long Island upholstery business. For the past four years Molly’s been on staff for an online magazine, covering all the wacky assignments. She’s snuck vibrators through security scanners, speed-dated undercover, danced with Rockettes, and posed nude for a Soho art studio.

Fearless in everything except love, Molly is now dating a forty-four-year-old chiropractor. He’s comfortable, but safe. When Molly is assigned to write a piece about New York City romance "in the style of Nora Ephron," she flunks out big-time. She can’t recognize romance. And she can’t recognize the one man who can go one-on-one with her, the one man who gets her. But with wit, charm, whip-smart humor, and Nora Ephron’s romantic comedies, Molly learns to open her heart and suppress her cynicism in this bright, achingly funny novel.
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First off, this novel was funny. I haven't laughed out loud while reading a book in some time, and I was delighted to find that Molly's screwball sense of humor was indeed humorous. We follow her through situation after situation, and her job is definitely interesting - she's a bit of a "human interest" reporter, and Deidre, her boss, makes her go on crazy assignments like skydiving and trying to sneak ... toys through security at a courthouse.

I will say this novel was very much predictable, but that is what made it fun while reading it. Nora Ephron's movies are predictable as well - in You've Got Mail, Meg ends up with Tom Hanks, and you're rooting for her to dump Greg Kinnear's character - and the same goes for Sleepless in Seattle referenced in the quote from What Nora Knew, above. What makes it fun, however, is trying to figure out how Molly will work her way through the novel, and what exactly her fate will be in the end, even though we have a rough idea of what that fate will be.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes "romcoms," as well as anyone who thinks you have to find your true love by age 30 (or 35, or 40, etc.) or else you're "out of luck."

What Nora Knew will be in stores on January 21, 2014. 4 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received an e-galley of this novel from NetGalley for reviewing purposes. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

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Review and GIVEAWAY: The Burning of Cherry Hill, ends 11/13

The Burning of Cherry Hill, by A.K. Butler.

It has been a mere five generations since the Second Revolutionary War threatened to destroy this nation, since vanishings ceased to be devastating realities and became colloquial slang. It is too easy to forget that Zavier and Evangelina Scot did not set out to start a war; the War followed in their wake. The greatest way to honor their sacrifice is to never force others to make it again. 

I love good dystopian lit, and this book definitely qualifies. Set in 2159, it follows Zay and Lina Scot, as their home is burned down and their parents die in the fire that consumes Block Island - or so the public thinks. Zay and Lina must figure out what is going on, as well as adapt to the new world they're living in, and they might find out some awful truths in the process.

Official synopsis:
It's 2159. Zay Scot is a fourteen-year-old boy raised on a secret island in hiding from a government he doesn't know exists. After more than a decade of avoiding detection, his fugitive parents are brutally kidnapped and he is thrust into a dizzying world centuries more advanced than the one he left behind.

The skies over the United North American Alliance are pollution-free. Meals are healthy and delivered to each home. Crime is nonexistent. Medical treatment requires only the scan of your wrist. Poverty, need, and hunger are things studied in history class.

But Zay soon finds himself a fugitive, escaping the brute force of a government always a whisper away. Now he must choose between peace and freedom, and if the journey doesn't kill him, what he finds might start a war.
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At first, this new world sounds interesting and intriguing. There's always enough food for everyone, if you're hurt or sick you can be fixed with the touch of a button (reminded me of the movie Elysium in that respect) ... and, also, the government also monitors where you are at all time using this same technology. Zay refuses to get a scanner once he and his sister Lina arrive on the "mainland" because of this, and his other orphan friends have to sometimes scan for him so he can have meals.

This is definitely not a "happily ever after" book - indeed, I was a bit shocked by the ending, although it seems to be "for the greater good" - but the journey that they take throughout it was interesting. It did have some Hunger Games elements in it, but overall it was a great, original dystopian story. At the beginning of the book, the Scots live on Block Island, free from government influence, which I think meant the Rhode Island location - that was intriguing to me because I have relatives who live in R.I., so I've heard of Block Island before.

My only criticism is that I would have liked a little more back story, even though the author did flesh out the history of the government and of Cherry Hill nicely.

4.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received an e-copy of this novel from the author for reviewing purposes. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

GIVEAWAY:

Enter via the Rafflecopter form below. Contest will end Wednesday, November 13th, at 11:59pm EST, and winner will be emailed on November 14th. Prize is one paperback copy of The Burning of Cherry Hill. U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

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GIVEAWAY: Seven Seconds: Memories of the JFK Assassination, the Tragedy that Changed America, ends 11/12

The e-book Seven Seconds: Memories of the JFK Assassination, the Tragedy that Changed America, by Holly Millea, has recently been published, and I have a copy for two of my lucky readers to win.

Official synopsis:
Where were you when you heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot?

For years, journalist Holly Millea has concluded interviews with that question. In her decades-long career as a magazine writer, Millea has interviewed dozens of cultural icons who have shared vivid memories of what they were doing on November 22, 1963, when three gunshots fired in Dallas changed America forever.

Jimmy Carter, still a Georgia farmer, had just come in from plowing a field. After hearing the news, he went back outside and wept. Robert Redford was starring in “Barefoot in the Park” on Broadway and could barely remember his lines that night. Artist Chuck Close was at Yale, horrified to see law students toasting JFK’s death. Barbra Streisand was buying a necklace, which she still owns but has never been able to wear. And Nora Ephron was a twenty-two-year-old reporter at the “New York Post.” “It was one of those days when I had a harrowing sense of how much I was a journalist, as opposed to a human being,” she recalled. “My instinct wasn’t to weep. It isn’t that I didn’t feel terrible, it’s just that I also felt ‘I’m a journalist and I’m going back to the city room, where I belong.’”

The Byliner Original “Seven Seconds” is an oral history of the day John F. Kennedy was killed, told through the voices of men and women who made their own impact on American culture and whose work is still relevant today. James Patterson, Jeff Bridges, Diane Keaton, Charlie Rose, James L. Brooks, Gay Talese, Judy Collins, Tom Stoppard, Meryl Streep, Dick Cavett, Peter Fonda, Gayle King, James Ellroy, Carl Reiner, Barney Frank, Donna Karan, and Lauren Bacall are among the many people Millea has spoken with about that fateful day. Everyone old enough has a story. And long or short, heartbreaking or wry, every story further illuminates not just a time and place, but an era. As John Kennedy said, “History, after all, is the memory of a nation.”

The whole world will be marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination this fall. Seven Seconds poses the question that many of us will be asking: Where were you?"

GIVEAWAY:

Enter via the Rafflecopter form below. Giveaway ends on Tuesday, November 12th, at 11:59pm EST, and winners will be notified on November 13th and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner(s) will be chosen. Open to all countries, since the prize is an e-book; two winners will be chosen.

Good luck!

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CONTEST: win a copy of Theirs to Keep (Tangled Hearts trilogy, #1) by Maya Banks, ends 11/11

Maya Banks, the author of the Breathless trilogy, is self-publishing her new book, Theirs to Keep, and it's currently available online as an e-book and in print-on-demand. I have a copy for one of my lucky readers to win - read on to see how!

Official synopsis:
While the Breathless trilogy chronicled the lives and loves of Gabe, Jace, and Ash, three of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the country, the Tangled Hearts trilogy follows the mysterious appearance of Elle and the impact she has on friends Cade Walker and Merrick Sullivan, who are both determined to keep her safe and loved when they find her. When a battered Elle appears in the cabinet of a gun store with no recollection of how she arrived or who she ran from, Cade and Merrick immediately feel a need to make sure she is taken care of and protected. Their protection ultimately grows to love, and the two men must face the ultimate test of friendship when it becomes clear that Elle is coming between them and neither of them is willing to back down.

In the provocative and thrilling Tangled Hearts trilogy, Banks explores the secrecy of one woman’s explosive past and the hope for her unique and challenging happily ever after with both of the men who love her.

Some interesting facts about Banks's Breathless trilogy:

• Rush Debuted at #3 on The New York Times Combined Print and eBook bestseller list (February 24, 2013)
• Fever landed at #2 on the USA Today bestseller list (April 7, 2013)
• Fever debuted at #2 on The New York Times Paperback Trade Fiction bestseller list (April 21, 2013)
• Burn debuted at #1 on the USA Today bestseller list (August 15, 2013)
• Burn debuted at #1 on 3 New York Times bestseller lists: Combined Print & E-book Fiction, Paperback Trade Fiction AND E-book Fiction (August 25, 2013)

GIVEAWAY:

Enter via the Rafflecopter form below. Giveaway ends on Monday, November 11th, at 11:59pm EST, and winner will be notified on November 12th and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen. U.S./Canada only, please.

Good luck!

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Book Review: The Theory of Opposites

The Theory of Opposites, by Allison Winn Scotch.

I guess I didn't see it, that we no longer fit, that he outgrew me. That the gawky high school kid eventually discovers that he can go back to his reunions and make the prom queens jealous with regret. 

But what's regret anyway?

Regret, I am learning now, is a lot of things. But mostly, it's a slippery seed of longing, of looking back and asking yourself why you didn't know better, when the answers were so obvious all along.

I was reading a book for my book club that was a little boring, and I crept onto my Kindle and remembered that I had downloaded this, Allison Winn Scotch's newest. I promised myself I'd only read a chapter or two and then return to my previous book ... but I quickly got immersed in this story, and the other book fell by the wayside for a while.

Official synopsis:
What happens when you think you have it all, and then suddenly it’s taken away?

Willa Chandler-Golden's father changed the world with his self-help bestseller, Is It Really Your Choice? Why Your Entire Life May Be Out of Your Control. Millions of devoted fans now find solace in his notion that everything happens for a reason. Though Willa isn't entirely convinced of her father’s theories, she readily admits that the universe has delivered her a solid life: a reliable husband, a fast-paced career. Sure there are hiccups – negative pregnancy tests, embattled siblings - but this is what the universe has brought, and life, if she doesn't think about it too much, is wonderful.

Then her (evidently not-so-reliable) husband proposes this: A two-month break. Two months to see if they can't live their lives without each other. And before Willa can sort out destiny and fate and what it all means, she’s axed from her job, her 12 year-old nephew Nicky moves in, her ex-boyfriend finds her on Facebook, and her best friend Vanessa lands a gig writing for Dare You!, the hottest new reality TV show. And then Vanessa lures Willa into dares of her own - dares that run counter to her father’s theories of fate, dares that might change everything…but only if Willa is brave enough to stop listening to the universe and instead aim for the stars.
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I loved that the characters and situations in this book were all so believable. Willa met her husband, Shawn, on Match.com six years ago, and they've been "Shilla" ever since, as her sister dubs them. All of a sudden, though, he wants to take a "break," and he proposes that they "do what they want" for two months while he goes to Palo Alto for a work opportunity. Willa is a little bit lost without him until her friend Vanessa proposes working together on a new book, one that Willa's father isn't too happy about because it directly contradicts his own bestseller.

Willa had one other love of her life, Theo, and he asked her to move to Seattle with him years ago; she declined, and the relationship ended. He recently Facebook-messaged her telling her has has testicular cancer, and wanting to reconnect.

Another thing I really liked about this book were the emails/Facebook-messages/tweets that popped up at the beginning of each chapter (I love books that do that). It decidedly puts the novel in the year 2013, and modern-day readers will enjoy this. I also was glad the novel ends how it did, because I was worried it would go the predictable route, for a minute, but it did not.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys "chick lit," but it's much more than that - it's a great story of how you never forget your first love, and how to really examine and evaluate relationships, whether they be with your parents, siblings, or significant other.

The Theory of Opposites will be in stores on November 12th. 5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received an e-galley of this book from Edelweiss for reviewing purposes. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own. 

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