The Kings and Queens of Roam is a book not to be missed!

Helen and Rachel McCallister are sisters. They only have each other now that their parents are gone. For years Helen has been jealous of Rachel and her beauty. Due to Rachel’s blindness, she can not tell any different what Helen is telling her when she tells Rachel that she is ugly. Helen’s lies grow when she creates this world around Roam filled with flesh eating birds and other monsters. However Helen could never know what her story was actually doing to Rachel until Rachel makes an announcement that will change both of their lives.

I was curious about this book. I thought I would give it a chance. Wow, I am so glad that I did. I almost missed out on a great book. I found myself not reading this book fast enough. What with life getting in the way!

I can not imagine depending on someone like Helen. She was so bitter towards Rachel. However I am glad that as the story went on Helen did turn a new leaf and became a better person and one that I actually liked. Due to Helen’s meanness towards Rachel I instantly liked Rachel.

There are two stories happening in this book. There is the one involving Rachel and Helen and then there is the other one involving Elijah and his slave Ming Kai. This story was just as captivating. It was fascinating to get to learn how Roam was discovered and got to be the place it was. The Kings and Queens of Roam is a book not to be missed! It is filled with lots of wonderful characters and a magical place.

The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black

Dr. Spencer Black was a good doctor. His colleagues all respect him. That is until Dr. Black started his own experiments. This book is about Dr. Black and his experiments all the way leading up to his disappearance. In this book are all the pictures of the creatures that Dr. Black was researching.


This book is creepy but memorizing at the same time. It was like I was really reading the journal of a mad but brilliant man. I say brilliant because Dr. Black although he may have turned into a monster in the name of science he still was trying to further investigate and research all that science had to offer.

When Dr. Black started creating his own blend of monsters in his lab and the results that was scary. However I was also intrigued by them as well. As you can tell I can not say enough great things about this book. This book needs to be turned into both a big screen movie and television series. Mr. Hudspeth holds nothing back with his first book. I anxiety await his next book. The Resurrectionist is a must read and probably one of the best books I have read in 2013! Don’t walk but run to the bookstore or type as fast as you can online to pick up a copy of this book today.

King Stakh's Wild Hunt

Andrey Belaretsky gets caught in a rain storm. His carriage takes him to the castle of Marsh Firs. There Andrey meets Nadzeya Yanovsky. It seems that Nadzeya is being stalked by sinister phantoms that go on a hunt at night. Andrey decides to stay and help Nadzeya. Andrey gets an up close and personal look at the Wild King’s Hunt.


I am a little embarrassed to admit that I have never heard of Uladzimir or that this book was made into a movie. This book is not something that I would typically read but I decided to give it a chance.

To be perfectly honest. I did find it different in an odd, good way. However I was not feeling it in the beginning and put the book down and gave up on it. It was only after I read some of the other reviews on this book that I decided to give it another chance. The book did get better once I was into it a while. The Wild King’s Hunt party is one scary hunting party. I sure would not want to be the hunted. This book is character driven and is very descriptive which really helped.

Quickie Book Contest

Up for grabs is all 4 books. US Only. Ends tomorrow, Monday night. Leave a comment with your email address as to whihc if all books you want to win.

A father for ten years, a mother for eight, and for a time in between, neither, or both ("the parental version of the schnoodle, or the cockapoo"), Jennifer Finney Boylan has seen parenthood from both sides of the gender divide. When her two children were young, Boylan came out as transgender, and as Jenny transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother, her family faced unique challenges and questions. In this thoughtful, tear-jerking, hilarious memoir, Jenny asks what it means to be a father, or a mother, and to what extent gender shades our experiences as parents. "It is my hope," she writes, "that having a father who became a woman in turn helped my sons become better men."


Through both her own story and incredibly insightful interviews with others, including Richard Russo, Edward Albee, Ann Beattie, Augusten Burroughs, Susan Minot, Trey Ellis, Timothy Kreider, and more, Jenny examines relationships with fathers and mothers, people's memories of the children they were and the parents they became, and the many different ways a family can be. Followed by an Afterword by Anna Quindlen that includes Jenny and her wife discussing the challenges they've faced and the love they share, Stuck in the Middle with You is a brilliant meditation on raising – and on being – a child.” To connect with Boylan, you can follow her on Twitter @JennyBoylan.    

The provocative bestseller She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders also by Jennifer Finney Boylan (the tenth anniversary edition on sale April 30, 2013) is the winning, utterly surprising story of a person changing genders. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of family. Told in Boylan’s fresh voice, She’s Not There is about a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret. As James evolves into Jennifer in scenes that are by turns tender, startling, and witty, a marvelously human perspective emerges on issues of love, sex, and the fascinating relationship between our physical and intuitive selves. Now with a new epilogue from the author and an afterword from Deirdre "Grace" Boylan, She’s Not There shines a light on the often confounding process of accepting ourselves.

“She’s Not There, the Running with Scissors of sex-change stories, brings irreverence and a merrily outrageous sense of humor to this potentially serious business.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times

 

Deep in the jungle where the borders of Vietnam meet those of Laos and Cambodia is a region known as "the lost world." Large mammals never seen before by Western science have popped up frequently in these mountains in the last decade, including a half-goat/half-ox, a deer that barks, and a close relative of the nearly extinct Javan rhino. In an age when scientists are excited by discovering a new kind of tube worm, the thought of finding and naming a new large terrestrial mammal is astonishing, and wildlife biologists from all over the world are flocking to this dangerous region. The result is a race between preservation and destruction. Containing research gathered from famous biologists, conservationists, indigenous peoples, former POWs, ex-Viet Cong, and the first U.S. ambassador to Vietnam since the war's end, Gold Rush in the Jungle goes deep into the valleys, hills, and hollows of Vietnam to explore the research, the international trade in endangered species, the lingering effects of Agent Orange, and the effort of a handful of biologists to save the world's rarest animals.

In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers and Their World, (in paperback March 26, 2013) historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner’s most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing. Employing scrupulous research and featuring 100 rarely seen photographs, he accurately depicts the ship’s brief life and tragic denouement and presents compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers: millionaires John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim; President Taft's closest aide, Major Archibald Butt; writer Helen Churchill Candee; the artist Frank Millet; movie actress Dorothy Gibson; the celebrated couturiere Lady Duff Gordon; aristocrat Noelle, the Countess of Rothes; and a host of other travelers. Through them, we gain insight into the arts, politics, culture, and sexual mores of a world both distant and near to our own. And with them, we gather on the Titanic’s sloping deck on that cold, starlit night and observe their all-too-human reactions as the disaster unfolds. More than ever, we ask ourselves, “What would we have done?” Today is the 101st anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and this book is a fresh perspective on the event and the people aboard.

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World

I am not a hard core fan of everything Titanic however I do find this subject matter to be fascinating. Thus a reason I wanted to check this book out. I liked the concept that Mr. Brewster brought with this book by focusing on one type of class of passengers. However I think that I might have preferred to read about the third class passengers more. Only because I think that there lies more history in their story and I would have felt the more human aspect then I got from reading about the first class passengers. After a while I did grow bored of the first class passengers and their stories.


What I did like about this book was learning about the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Mr. Brewster did a good job of describing the ship from the large state rooms, the ship captain’s daily walks to check each deck and the engine room to the fact that the crew was pretty much sailing blind without any binoculars so the look outs could not see that far ahead of them for any signs of danger.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

Steel Magnolias meets The Help in this Southern debut novel sparkling with humor, heart, and feminine wisdom


Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all- knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.

Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, "packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart." It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.

Purchase a ecopy for $2.99

When Love Calls

Hannah Gregory is worried about what she is going to do after the death of her parents. It is up to her to care for her younger sisters. Hannah just may have found the answer to her prayers when she spots an advertisement in the grocery store. The ad is for a switchboard operator.


Lincoln Cole works for the bank. He pays a visit to the Gregory homestead. It seems that Hannah’s father took out a second mortgage on the house and defaulted on the loan. The bank is foreclosing on the home.

Luckily for Hannah she meets Rosie. Rosie is also a new switchboard operator. Her mother has a cottage that just became available. She offers it to the girls.

Lincoln may be handsome but Hannah remembers that he is the enemy.

I loved Hannah. She has lots of spunk. She is a free thinker and the type of woman I would imagine myself to be back in these times if I was living in them. Hannah’s two sisters are just as entertaining. I can not wait to read their stories.

Lincoln is easy on the eyes. I almost felt sorry for the way that Hannah treated him, except that I knew that Lincoln could handle Hannah. Now that I have been introduced to this author, I will be checking out more of her books. When Love Calls you answer it and read a copy of this book!

“Available May 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”