September 21, 2007

Where I'll Be Sunday Night, September 23rd at 8PM ET

Bookreporter.com Talks to Emily Benedek, Author of RED SEA

Now in Stores: THE WAR: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns

Now in Stores: THE BONE GARDEN by New York Times Bestselling Author Tess Gerritsen

Featured Suspense/Thriller Author: Mark Gimenez, Author of THE ABDUCTION

Featured Debut Suspense/Thriller Author: Chelsea Cain, Author of HEARTSICK

Featured One to Watch Author: Peter Pezzelli, Author of ITALIAN LESSONS

Featured One to Watch Author: Shobhan Bantwal, Author of THE DOWRY BRIDE

Featured One to Watch Author: Joshua Henkin, Author of MATRIMONY

Featured One to Watch Author: David Gibbins, Author of CRUSADER GOLD

This Week's Reviews and Features

Poll and Question of the Week: TV Viewing Habits

Word of Mouth: Tell Us What You're Reading --- TWO Prizes!

Historical Fiction Promotion

Summer Beach Bag of Books Promotion

Where I'll Be Sunday Night, September 23rd at 8PM ET

Fall, which to me is a nasty four-letter word right now, supposedly arrives tomorrow. I, who still am holding onto summer, continued to swim in the pool in our yard this week even on the very chilly mornings where the thermometer seemed to be stuck at 52. I raced from the house to the heated pool where the steam was rising off of it and wafting into the air. I saw that as a sign to jump in. I am sure that my more practical husband saw it as dollars floating from his checkbook. Two years ago I swam at the house 'til Halloween. With each stroke I was planning the geodome to go over the pool to ensure that I could swim through the winter. I guess it was those exercise endomorphins kicking in that were making me delirious. Well, when my husband got the gas bill in November, reality set in and I told him that that could be my birthday, Christmas, anniversary and Mother's Day present for the year. He did not disagree. And then I joined the Y.

Back in June I saw Ken Burns talk about his new PBS documentary "The War" at both Book Expo America and the American Library Association conference. At BEA I was completely taken with his presentation --- he is one of the most effective and articulate speakers I ever have heard --- and his passion for his work on this series, which takes a look at World War II from the perspective of the citizens from four American towns. During the second presentation, which was over an hour long, Burns showed clips from the series to a hushed crowd of librarians who not only filled the chairs in the auditorium where we were, but found spaces on the floor once the seats were gone. As he walked back onto the stage after the clips aired, he was greeted by a standing-room ovation from what had to be close to 1,000 people.

During each presentation he very clearly stated that the seven-part series would begin on Sunday, September 23rd at 8PM ET, and the way he spoke, this date stayed in my very over-data-taxed brain. Please note here I do not love reading about history when it's all facts, but when I read/see people's stories, I always am intrigued. Thus I found myself reading the companion book to the series without moving for more than an hour. There are so many facts here that I did not know, but the way he shares them they are compelling. Interestingly, Burns agreed to do this series when he realized that many high school students were not aware of who fought on what side and when he realized that the oral history of the aging veterans would soon be silenced. I know we will be watching at our house, and I encourage you to do the same at yours.

One of my favorite authors is Tess Gerritsen, thus I am happy to share that her latest book, THE BONE GARDEN, is now in stores. I had the pleasure of reading this one on vacation, and I love the way that Tess wove history into this story and delivered a strong work with only a brief entry from her usual characters. When I saw her earlier this year she was enjoying her research on this book, and the way the story flows I see her meticulous attention to detail coming through without obscuring the storyline. Bravo.

We are featuring an interview this week with Emily Benedek, whose debut novel is RED SEA. In it, Benedek discusses the various inspirations behind her characters and the factors that helped shape her book. She also compares her experience as the author of a fictional work to her experience as a journalist.

Three of our featured authors have responded to readers' questions this week: Raymond Khoury, author of THE SANCTUARY; Sarah Addison Allen, author of GARDEN SPELLS; and Mark Gimenez, author of THE ABDUCTION. We also have advance reader comments for POWER PLAY by Joseph Finder and THE STREET OF A THOUSAND BLOSSOMS by Gail Tsukiyama.

There are two movies in theaters this weekend that we cover in our Books into Movies feature: Into the Wild, Sean Penn’s adaptation of the nonfiction bestseller by Jon Krakauer, and The Jane Austen Book Club, based on the book by Karen Joy Fowler. Next week we are running a Jane Austen feature where Cindy Crosby will delve into more than 15 titles with a Jane Austen theme.

I had a busy week with events out all four weekday nights, leaving me little time for reading. And when I read, I needed something light and funny. Thus I was glad I had a copy of Celia Rivenbark's STOP DRESSING YOUR SIX-YEAR-OLD LIKE A SKANK on my pile. It's a collection of essays that take on life in the South, motherhood and housekeeping with signature humor. I met Celia a couple of years ago at a Southeastern Independent Bookseller event in Winston-Salem, and she was such fun. As we chatted in the hotel lobby she literally sounded like a reading of her essays --- this woman can see material ANYPLACE --- thus I heard her voice as I turned these pages. Good fun.

Here's to a great weekend and week. I am off to the beach tomorrow to celebrate my dad's birthday, which should be great fun.

Carol Fitzgerald (Carol@bookreporter.com)

 

Bookreporter.com Talks to Emily Benedek, Author of RED SEA

Journalist and author Emily Benedek recently published her debut novel, RED SEA, which chronicles the investigation --- spearheaded by an Israeli Special Forces commander, a counterterrorist expert and an American reporter --- into a major terrorist attack. In this interview with Bookreporter.com's Joe Hartlaub, Benedek explains why she chose to write this book as a work of fiction, even though its information came from one very real source, and discusses the various inspirations behind her characters. She also compares and contrasts writing fiction and nonfiction, shares her thoughts on the current state of homeland security and names a few of the figures --- both literary and otherwise --- who have helped shape her work.

RED SEA by Emily Benedek (Thriller)
After four commercial airliners are blown out of the sky in international airspace, retired Israeli Special Forces commander Julian Granot is called in to investigate. With the help of an intrepid American journalist, Marie Peterssen, and Morgan Ensley, a maverick FBI agent, Granot makes the horrifying discovery that the crashes were meant to conceal a more diabolical attack. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

-Click here to read a review of RED SEA.
-Click here to read an excerpt from RED SEA.
 

Now in Stores: THE WAR: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns

Click here to read a review of THE WAR.

Now in Stores: THE BONE GARDEN by New York Times Bestselling Author Tess Gerritsen

THE BONE GARDEN by Tess Gerritsen (Thriller)
Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local resurrectionists --- those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect.

"Digs up a dark Boston of times long past [and] entices readers to keep turning pages long after their bedtimes."
- Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

-Click here to read a review of THE BONE GARDEN.
-Click here to read an excerpt from THE BONE GARDEN.
 

Click here to visit Tess Gerritsen's official website.

THE NEXT KILLING by Rebecca Drake (Thriller)
For one hundred years, the best girls have come to St. Ursula’s Preparatory Academy to learn. To achieve. To make both memories and friends. But now, it’s where they also come to die…

A twisted psychopath is turning the quiet campus into a school of fear. No sins will go unpunished. No girl will escape justice. And everyone will have a chance to join a serial killer’s exclusive club in this terrifying new thriller by master storyteller Rebecca Drake.
 

Click here to read more about THE NEXT KILLING.

Featured Suspense/Thriller Author: Mark Gimenez, Author of THE ABDUCTION

Click here to read more about Mark Gimenez and THE ABDUCTION.

John Hart's first novel, THE KING OF LIES, was a bestseller when it was released in 2006. His second work of fiction is DOWN RIVER, and it tells the haunting story of Adam Chase as he returns to the hometown he was exiled from to reclaim his life. The book will be available on October 2nd and promises to be a worthy follow-up to his debut.

-Click here to read a second excerpt from DOWN RIVER.
-Click here to read fast facts about John Hart.
-Click here to read John Hart’s bio.
-Click here to see John Hart's backlist.
-Visit the author’s website, www.JohnHartFiction.com.
-Click here to see our advance copy winners.

More about DOWN RIVER:
Adam Chase has a violent streak, and not without reason. As a boy growing up in Rowan County, North Carolina, he saw things that no child should see, suffered wounds that cut to the core and scarred thin. The trauma left him passionate and misunderstood --- a fighter. After being narrowly acquitted of a murder charge, Adam is hounded out of the only home he’s ever known, exiled for a sin he did not commit. For five long years he disappears, fades into the faceless gray of New York City. Now he’s back and nobody knows why, not his family or the cops, not the enemies he left behind.

But Adam has his reasons.

Within hours of his return, he is beaten and accosted, confronted by his family and the women he still holds dear. No one knows what to make of Adam’s return, but when bodies start turning up, the small town rises against him and Adam again finds himself embroiled in the fight of his life, not just to prove his own innocence, but to reclaim the only life he’s ever wanted.
 

Click here to read more about John Hart and DOWN RIVER.

Featured Debut Suspense/Thriller Author: Chelsea Cain, Author of HEARTSICK

In Chelsea Cain's first novel, the New York Times bestseller HEARTSICK, Portland detective Archie Sheridan is finding it difficult to stay away from the beautiful serial killer who tortured him for 10 days before turning herself in. When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders.

-Click here to read a review of HEARTSICK.
-Click here to read an excerpt from HEARTSICK.
-Click here to read an interview with Chelsea Cain.
-Click here to read critical praise for HEARTSICK.
-Click here to read Chelsea Cain's bio.
-Click here to view a trailer for HEARTSICK.
-Visit the author's official website, www.ChelseaCain.com.
-Click here to see our advance copy winners.

More about HEARTSICK:
Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind --- addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. Archie’s a different person, his estranged wife says, and he knows she’s right. He continues to visit Gretchen in prison once a week, saying that only he can get her to confess as to the whereabouts of more of her victims, but even he knows the truth --- he can’t stay away.

When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders. A hungry young newspaper reporter, Susan Ward, begins profiling Archie and the investigation, which sparks a deadly game between Archie, Susan, the new killer, and even Gretchen. They need to catch a killer, and maybe somehow then Archie can free himself from Gretchen, once and for all. Either way, HEARTSICK makes for one of the most extraordinary suspense debuts in recent memory.
 

Click here to read more about Chelsea Cain and HEARTSICK.

Featured One to Watch Author: Peter Pezzelli, Author of ITALIAN LESSONS

Author Peter Pezzelli's first book, HOME TO ITALY, was a Book Sense pick in 2004. With his trademark warmth, humor and wisdom, Pezzelli's new novel, ITALIAN LESSONS (which releases on September 25th), weaves an unforgettable tale of Italian-American life and family, hope and heartbreak, lessons learned and lessons deferred, and a love that can heal time's greatest wounds.

-Click here to read an excerpt from ITALIAN LESSONS.
-Click here to read Peter Pezzelli's bio.
-Click here to see Peter Pezzelli's backlist.
-Click here to read critical praise for ITALIAN LESSONS.
-Click here to see our advance copy winners.

More about ITALIAN LESSONS:
Fresh out of college, Carter Quinn has returned to his home in North Providence, Rhode Island, unsure of just about everything except his plans to go to Italy and pursue the woman of his dreams. To do that, he needs to learn to speak Italian, and only one man is right for the job --- Giancarlo Rosa...if Carter can survive him.

Giancarlo is nobody's fool. The middle-aged music professor does offer Italian lessons, but only to those who are truly motivated. If Carter wants to learn, he will have to prove himself: lessons three times a week, hours of studying, strict discipline. And there will be no questions about the professor's life --- why he hasn't written music in years, why he lives alone, and why he left his homeland in the first place. Carter may see Italy as a land of romance, but Giancarlo knows just what disappointments and betrayals live under the Abruzzo sky. What begins as an apparent mismatch between mentor and student soon blossoms into something deeper --- a friendship that carries them into the old country, where forgotten secrets may hold the key to a new lease on life.

Now, in a land of sun, wine, new romance and old wounds, two men will embark on separate, unpredictable journeys that will take them deep into the untraveled places of the heart...
 

Click here to read more about Peter Pezzelli and ITALIAN LESSONS.

Featured One to Watch Author: Shobhan Bantwal, Author of THE DOWRY BRIDE

Click here to read more about Shobhan Bantwal and THE DOWRY BRIDE.

Featured One to Watch Author: Joshua Henkin, Author of MATRIMONY

Our third featured One to Watch author is Joshua Henkin, whose second novel, MATRIMONY (following SWIMMING ACROSS THE HUDSON), releases on October 2nd. Here, Henkin presents a beautifully detailed portrait of what it means to share a life with someone --- to do so when you're young, and to try again, afresh, on the brink of middle age.

-Click here to read a second excerpt from MATRIMONY.
-Click here to read Joshua Henkin’s bio.
-Click here to see Joshua Henkin's backlist.
-Click here to read critical praise for MATRIMONY.
-Visit the author’s website, www.JoshuaHenkin.com.
-Click here to see our advance copy winners.

More about MATRIMONY:
From the moment he was born, Julian Wainwright has lived a life of Waspy privilege. The son of a Yale-educated investment banker, he grew up in a huge apartment on Sutton Place, high above the East River, and attended a tony Manhattan private school. Yet, more than anything, he wants to get out --- out from under his parents’ influence, off to Graymont College, in western Massachusetts, where he hopes to become a writer.

When he arrives, in the fall of 1986, Julian meets Carter Heinz, a scholarship student from California with whom he develops a strong but ambivalent friendship. Carter’s mother, desperate to save money for his college education, used to buy him reversible clothing, figuring she was getting two items for the price of one. Now, spending time with Julian, Carter seethes with resentment. He swears he will grow up to be wealthy --- wealthier, even, than Julian himself.

Then, one day, flipping through the college facebook, Julian and Carter see a photo of Mia Mendelsohn. Mia from Montreal, they call her. Beautiful, Jewish, the daughter of a physics professor at McGill, Mia is --- Julian and Carter agree --- dreamy, urbane, stylish, refined.

But Julian gets to Mia first, meeting her by chance in the college laundry room. Soon they begin a love affair that --- spurred on by family tragedy --- will carry them to graduation and beyond, taking them through several college towns, over the next ten years. Then Carter reappears, working for an Internet company in California, and he throws everyone’s life into turmoil: Julian’s, Mia’s, his own.

Starting at the height of the Reagan era and ending in the new millennium, MATRIMONY is about love and friendship, about money and ambition, desire and tensions of faith. It asks what happens to a marriage when it is confronted by betrayal and the specter of mortality. What happens when people marry younger than they’d expected? Can love endure the passing of time?

 

Click here to read more about Joshua Henkin and MATRIMONY.

Featured One to Watch Author: David Gibbins, Author of CRUSADER GOLD

Click here to read more about David Gibbins and CRUSADER GOLD.

This Week's Reviews and Features

Read this week's reviews and features here.

Poll and Question of the Week: TV Viewing Habits

Poll:

What do you like to watch on television? Check as many as apply.

Documentaries
Sitcoms
Dramas
Ongoing Prime Time Series
Reality TV Shows
Game Shows
Talk Shows
Cooking Shows
Music Programming
News and Weather
Sports
Home and Garden
Movies
None of the above
I don't watch television.

-Click here to answer our poll.


Question:

What are your three favorite television programs?

-Click here to answer our Question of the Week.


 

Word of Mouth: Tell Us What You're Reading --- TWO Prizes!

Tell us what books YOU are reading and loving --- or even those you don't.

This week we have two great prizes: FIVE readers each will win a copy of BRIDGE OF SIGHS by Richard Russo and THE CHOICE by Nicholas Sparks. Tell us what you are reading and rate the titles 1-5 by noon on October 5th to ensure that you are in the running to win these books.

Please note that our next Word of Mouth update will be on October 5th.