Book News and Reviews: May 2015

Hello, strangers! Since posting our Best of 2014 lists in January, I've been on a bit of a reading hiatus due to the demands of work and school. Thus, with no time to read and even less time (or remaining brain power) to write a considered review, I've been lax about keeping up this blog. But that's all changing now! I finish my degree this month, and I can't wait to catch up on all the new books I've been eying enviously while I've been buried in text books.

In preparation for my reading binge, I've also been cleaning out the book shelves in my office and at home. I have finished copies and ARCs that I'm ready to part with. A few are remainders from our last giveaway that were never claimed, and others are highly anticipated new or forthcoming releases. So you know what that means: it's Spring Giveaway time!

As always, the rules of entry are at the end of the post. Please note that all prizes must be picked up at a BCPL location within two months of notification or they will be returned to the stockpile for the next giveaway. Contest ends at 12:00 AM on Tuesday, May 26th.

So without further ado, here are our giveaways for Spring 2015:

Final Copies/Finished Publications:

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl by Paige McKenzie
The Haunting of Sunshine Girl #1
* Hardcover *
Moving from Texas to Washington, Sunshine, an adopted sixteen-year-old, discovers that her new home is haunted and that the ghosts may have revelations about her past.. –NoveList

A Memory of Violets by Hazel Gaynor
* Trade Paperback *
Soon after taking a job at a home for orphaned flower girls, Tilly Harper finds a notebook that tells the tale of two flower girl sisters, Flora and Rosie, who were heartbreakingly separated forty years before.. –NoveList

Advent by James Treadwell
Advent Trilogy #1
* Hardcover *
Five centuries after a magician flees with a small ring that contains all of the world's magic, fifteen-year-old Gavin is dispatched to the home of his aunt because of his ability to see things that others do not believe exist, a power he must use to stop evil from escaping into the world. –NoveList

Soul Healing Miracles by Dr. & Master Zhi Gang Sha
* Hardcover *
Subtitled Ancient and New Sacred Wisdom, Knowledge, and Practical Techniques for Healing the Spiritual, Mental, Emotional, and Physical Bodies.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
* Hardcover *
Suffering an accident that causes her to forget the last ten years of her life, Alice is astonished to discover that she is thirty-nine years old, a mother of three children, and in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from a man she dearly loves. –NoveList

The Love Playbook by La La Anthony
* Hardcover *
Subtitled Rules for Love, Sex, and Happiness. The author is a television personality, actress, and wife of New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony.

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin
* Trade Paperback *
A story inspired by the marriage between Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh traces the romance between a handsome young aviator and a shy ambassador's daughter whose relationship is marked by wild international acclaim. –NoveList


Blowing on Dandelions by Miralee Ferrell Love Blossoms in Oregon #2 * Trade Paperback (2 copies available) * Widow and single mother Katherine struggles to run her Oregon boarding house by herself, but she learns to find the faith, wisdom, and courage to transform her life and relationships when she meets widower Micah Jacobs. –NoveList

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
Cormoran Strike #1
* Trade Paperback*
Private investigator Cormoran Strike has a day he'll not soon forget. The 35-year-old, who lost a leg in Afghanistan, spends the night in his bare-bones London office after a relationship-ending fight with his girlfriend. That morning, he sports a cut on his face (she threw an ashtray) as he rushes out the door, barreling into a new temp secretary he can't afford, almost sending her down a staircase. The forgiving temp, Robin, quickly proves useful when they get a case: a famous young model supposedly jumped from the top of her penthouse apartment, but her brother believes she was murdered. Entering the realm of the mega-rich, Strike and Robin question celebrities and fashionistas, trying to uncover the truth in a beautifully written book that was pseudonymously written by none other than J.K. Rowling. –NoveList

Advance Reading Copies (ARCs), in order of publication:

The Mapmaker's Children by Sarah McCoy
*ARC - Book Release Date: May 2015 *
When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad's leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can't bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril. Eden, a modern woman desperate to conceive a child with her husband, moves to an old house in the suburbs and discovers a porcelain head hidden in the root cellar--the remains of an Underground Railroad doll with an extraordinary past of secret messages, danger and deliverance. Ingeniously plotted to a riveting end, Sarah and Eden's woven lives connect the past to the present, forcing each of them to define courage, family, love, and legacy in a new way. –NoveList

Empire of Night by Kelley Armstrong
Age of Legends #2
*ARC - Book Release Date: April 2015 *
Separated while trying to save the children of their village, twin sisters Ashyn and Moria must draw on all their power and influence to defeat enemies of legend and avert war in the empire. –NoveList

The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg
*ARC - Book Release Date: April 2015 *
George Sand leaves her estranged husband and children to embark on a life of art in bohemian Paris. A talented writer who finds monetary and critical success, Sand adopts a man's name, often dresses as a gentleman and smokes cigars. Through her writing, politics, sexual complexities and views on feminism, Sand is always seeking love. This novel has spurred me to learn more about George Sand, a woman truly ahead of her time. –NoveList

Dead Wake by Erik Larson
*ARC - Book Release Date: March 2015 *
In cinematic terms, this dramatic page-turner is Das Boot meets Titanic. Larson has a wonderful way of creating a very readable, accessible story of a time, place, and event. We get three sides of the global story--the U-boat commander, British Admiralty and President Wilson--but what really elevates this book are the affecting stories of individual crew and passengers. -- Robert Schnell for LibraryReads. –via NoveList

The Marauders by Tom Cooper
*ARC - Book Release Date: February 2015 *
After the BP oil spill devastates the Gulf Coast, the oddballs and lowlifes who live in the sleepy, working-class bayou town of Jeannette will do anything to reverse their fortunes, including Gus Lindquist, a pill-addicted, one-armed treasure hunter obsessed with finding the lost treasure of pirate Jean Lafitte. –NoveList

Irritable Hearts by Mac McClelland
*ARC - Book Release Date: February 2015 *
In 2010, human rights reporter Mac McClelland left Haiti after covering the devastation of the earthquake. Back home, she finds herself imagining vivid scenes of violence and can't sleep or stop crying. It becomes clear that she is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, triggered by her trip and seemingly exacerbated by her experiences in the other charged places she'd reported from. The bewilderment about this sudden loss of self-control is magnified by her feelings for Nico, a French soldier she met in Haiti who despite their brief connection seems to have found a place in her confused heart. While we most often connect it to veterans, PTSD is more often caused by other manner of trauma, and can even be contagious--close proximity to those afflicted can trigger it in those around them. –NoveList

Diamond Boy by Michael Williams
*ARC - Book Release Date: November 2014 *
When Patson's family moves to Marange region of Zimbabwe, he begins working in the mines, searching for blood diamonds, until government soldiers arrive and Patson is forced to journey to South Africa in search of his missing sister and a better life. –From the Publisher, via NoveList

Both of Me by Jonathan Friesen
*ARC - Book Release Date: December 2014 *
When her carry-on bag is accidentally switched with Elias's identical pack, Clara uses the luggage tag to track down her things. At that address she discovers there is not one Elias Phinn, but two. –From the Publisher, via NoveList

Basquiat by Jennifer Clement
*ARC - Book Release Date: November 2014 *
An exploration of the achievements and tragic early death of New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is presented through the story of his relationship with his lover and muse, Suzanne Mallouk. –NoveList

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
*ARC - Book Release Date: October 2014 *
Called to perform missionary work on a world light years away where the natives are fascinated by the concepts he introduces, man of faith Peter Leigh finds his beliefs tested when he learns of natural disasters that are tearing Earth apart. –NoveList

The Madman of Piney Woods by Christopher Paul Curtis
Companion to Elijah of Buxton
* ARC - Book Release Date: September 2014 *
Even though it is now 1901, the people of Buxton, Canada (originally a settlement of runaway slaves) and Chatham, Canada are still haunted by two events of half a century before--the American Civil War, and the Irish potato famine, and the lasting damage those events caused to the survivors.
–NoveList

The Beekeeper's Ball by Susan Wiggs
Bella Vista #2
* ARC - Book Release Date: June 2014 *
While transforming Bella Vista, her childhood home, into a destination cooking school, chef Isabel Johansen finds her plans interrupted by war-torn journalist Cormac O'Neill who has arrived to dig up old history. –NoveList

Love by the Morning Star by Laura L. Sullivan
* ARC - Book Release Date: June 2014 *
Mistaken for one another when they are sent to the grand English country estate of Starkers on the brink of World War II, Hannah, a distant relative hoping to be welcomed by the family, and Anna, sent to spy for the Nazis, both unexpectedly fall in love. –NoveList

Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly by Conrad Wesselhoeft
* ARC - Book Release Date: April 2014 *
Seventeen year-old dirt-bike-riding daredevil Arlo Santiago catches the eye of the U.S. military with his first-place ranking on a video game featuring drone warfare, and must reconcile the work they want him to do with the emotional scars he has suffered following a violent death in his family. –Publisher's Description

Crossover by Kwame Alexander
* ARC - Book Release Date: March 2014 *
Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health. –NoveList
NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER & one of BCPL's Best Books of 2014

Alive in Necropolis by Doug Dorst
* ARC - Book Release Date: July 2008 *
Navigating adult responsibilities in a California city where the dead outnumber the living, rookie cop Michael Mercer becomes increasingly obsessed with the mysterious fate of his predecessor, an officer who believed he policed the dead. –NoveList

Rules of Entry

1. To enter the drawing, you must complete two tasks.
First, you must leave a comment at the bottom of this post stating which titles you would like to receive. If you do not leave a comment at the bottom of the post, I will not know which prize(s) to give you if you win the drawing. You may choose as many titles as you like; you are not guaranteed to win your top choices, but I do my best. Second, you must log in to the Rafflecopter Widget with your e-mail address or Facebook account and Click "+1" and "Enter" on the widget only after you have posted your comment below. After completing the first task, you can also earn bonus entries by following the directions in the widget.

2. All ARCs must be picked up at a Bullitt County Public Library location. Contest ends at 12:00 AM on Tuesday, May 26th. Winners will be notified via e-mail and will be posted on this blog. Winners will have up to two months from the time of notification to collect their prizes.

Rafflecopter Widget: Enter the Giveaway Drawing Here
(Don't forget to click "Post a Comment" to leave your comment in the Comments section below!)

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Book News and Reviews

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Spring Giveaway Winners + Last-Chance Giveaway

Friday, May 1, 2015

Spring 2015 Giveaway