October 12, 2012

When we left off last week, I was in Cleveland for Bouchercon, which ended up to be a full weekend of seeing author and reader friends, as well as those from around the industry --- a real celebration of reading. Over the weekend, I heard from people who had attended this event for 30 years. As it travels from city to city each year, that is a real commitment from folks; I think this was my 8th Bouchercon.

John Connolly served as Toastmaster for the conference, and when interviewed by Karin Slaughter, he had one of the great comments of the weekend. He was talking about the price of books when he said that people complain about the cost of a book, but then pay $5.00 for a Hallmark card. I had never thought about it quite like that. I have heard comparisons to buying a latte, but not to other written words. Thinking about even the most poignant words on a card, very few would ever come close to the value of a book. And even the favorite cards that I have received usually end up tucked in a drawer or a box never to be displayed like the books on my shelves.

I loved getting to spend time in Cleveland with Joe Hartlaub, who, besides being a killer reviewer, also has a real knack for finding great hats. In the photo above, he is pictured second left with Ali Karim of shotsmag.co.uk, author Kelli Stanley, and Mike Stotter, author and editor of shotsmag.co.uk. Their chapeau shopping was at Mike the Hatter in Broadview Heights. They were graciously assisted by Sam, who also took the photo.

Bouchercon also was the site of a pretty special reunion for me. When we first started our flagship site, Bookreporter.com, we had a hosted chat room called Bookaccino on AOL, where readers gathered to talk about books 24/7. It ended up closing close to a decade ago, but many of the chat hosts still keep in touch. We had had two gatherings with them in Chicago and St. Louis, the last of which was held about 14 years ago. In what can only be called a stroke of total kismet, one of the Chat Coordinators, Candi, was at Bouchercon. I did not know this until I wrote on Facebook that I was there. Liz, a former host, quickly wrote that she and Judy were driving up from the Cincinnati area, and another host from Pennsylvania, Anna, just happened to be driving through at the same time to go to a wedding in Akron.

While there were four convention hotels, we all were staying in the same hotel a couple of blocks away, all done with no advance conversation or planning. We gathered for breakfast on Saturday morning and found ourselves quickly scratching out notes of what we had read and loved. Actually there was a lot of immediate downloading of books that folks enjoyed. It was great to learn that Candi used our discussion guides in her high school contemporary lit class (she just retired this year); she found them a great way to bring up points to engage her students. Really nice to know that teens are being introduced to our guides in this way! We sat talking for two hours, and if we all did not have other plans, we clearly could have been there all day. Talk about an extended book group!

Anna is as much of a knitting nut as me, and she gave me a great tip about Ravelry, the online knitting community site. There you can list your pattern books and magazines, and while you cannot pull up all of a pattern online, you can see how much yarn you need, what needles and other relevant details you need when shopping. Now I just need time to catalog my books. And we all said we would love something like this for cookbooks! We joked that we try to remember the font size of our favorite recipes, or the spills on the pages.

In he picture above, it's Candi, Liz, Anna, me, Judy and Joe. By the way, Joe's comment as we went to take the picture: "I do not have my hat!"

Some other great quotes from the weekend: “You cannot write anything that cannot be drawn.” Charlaine Harris is working on a graphic novel for TRUE BLOOD. She talked about how writing a graphic novel is very different from writing a prose book. The one thing she has been advised of is that she cannot write anything that cannot be drawn. A whole new way to look at story writing! Mary Higgins Clark asks herself three questions as she writes: “Suppose, What if and Why.” Read a mystery and see if those are all answered!

Wanted to get you word that the Miami Book Fair is just around the corner from November 11th-18th with the Street Fair from the 16th thru the 18th. Confirmed authors include talk show host Bill O’Reilly, actress Molly Ringwald, political commentator Andrew Solomon, historians Robert Caro and Deborah Dash Moore, David Maraniss, Michael Grunwald; Pulitzer Prize-winning and National Book Award Finalist Junot Diaz; essayists and commentators Adam Gopnik and Camille Paglia; novelists Sandra Cisneros, Emma Donoghue, Jess Walter, Anne Lamott, Lauren Groff, Robert Goolrick, Thane Rosenbaum, personality Lemony Snicket; fashion designers Isabel and Ruben Toledo; bestselling authors James Patterson, Jo Nesbo, R.L. Stine, Justin Torres, and opening the Fair on November 11th is novelist and journalist Tom Wolfe, to name just a few of the 300 plus authors coming to Miami from all over the world to read from their newest works, meet their readers and sign books. Much more on this in the weeks to come!

Leading off our new reviews this week is THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB, a touching memoir about the “book club” Will Schwalbe started with his mother while she battled terminal cancer. Through reading and discussing a wide variety of books, the two were able to learn a lot about life, love, and each other. I picked this book last week as a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection. Click here to see why it’s one of my favorites of the year. Our reviewer, Carole Turner, has similar feelings: “Although readers of THE LAST LECTURE may find some similarities to THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB, Will's book provides an in-depth look at a loving family supporting their beloved Mary Anne, a son’s deep affection and abiding respect for his mother, and an appreciation for all things literary. I was deeply touched by Will's writing and believe that readers of this book will be as well.”

By the way, Will had an interesting comment about the differences between eBooks and print books, which I am sharing just a part of here. When his mom passed away, "She was surrounded by books --- a wall of bookshelves, books on her night table, a book beside her....The spines were all colors, and there were paperbacks and hardcovers, and books that had lost their dust jackets and ones that had never had them...They were Mom's companions and teachers. They had shown her the way....What comfort could be gained by staring at my lifeless e-reader?" There is much, much more in these closing pages about what these books meant to his mom, including one very special stack that he found.

Next up is RED RAIN, R.L. Stine’s first book for adults in 17 years. Lea Sutter, a travel writer, is working on the coast of South Carolina when a hurricane rips through the area. Barely escaping with her own life, Lea decides to adopt twin boys orphaned by the same storm. However, when Lea and the boys return to her home in Long Island, her family isn’t happy about the new additions. When brutal murders start taking place, the family’s growing pains aren’t their only problem. Reviewer Kate Ayers warns readers to “prepare to be scared witless. RED RAIN is definitely Goosebumps for adults.” My son Greg thinks that “Bob” Stine is one of the nicest people; whenever we see him at a conference, he still cannot believe that he is talking to the author who he most admired in third grade. Need to get “grown-up Greg” reading this one.

Now that Joe is back from Bouchercon, he has reviews of two books we previewed in the last newsletter. In LIVE BY NIGHT by Dennis Lehane, we have a son of a Prohibition-era police officer who should be a stickler about the rules. But Joe Coughlin is the exact opposite. Starting with petty theft in childhood and moving on to the life of a full-blown gangster, Joe is about anything except the rules. However, the life of a mobster doesn’t give you many people you can rely on, and the only two retirement plans seem to be prison or death. Can Joe survive the fast-paced jazz age and the mean streets of Boston? According to Joe Hartlaub, “Ultimately, Lehane’s prose is the primary element that makes LIVE BY NIGHT the winner it is and places it among the best novels chronicling a bygone era.”

And in PHANTOM by Jo Nesbo, detective Harry Hole is back from Hong Kong after leaving Oslo for good. He is drawn back when Oleg, the boy he helped raise and the son of the woman Harry loved and lost, is arrested for murder. Because he is barred from rejoining the police force, Harry must delve alone into the underworld of Oslo to prove Oleg’s innocence. Joe says, “PHANTOM…is [Nesbo’s] most challenging and complex work to date, a novel that brings Harry so close to his own heart of darkness that it is at times painful to read yet compels one to do so, and as quickly as possible.”

We also have a review of Louise Erdrich's new novel, THE ROUND HOUSE, which just this week was announced as a finalist for this year’s National Book Award. After a horrible crime occurs on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota, a young boy must become a man while dealing with the transformations his family makes as a result of the atrocity. L. Dean Murphy has our review and says, “Like multitudinous notes in a symphony, Louise Erdrich orchestrates the nuances in Joe’s complex life. The recipient of many awards, Erdrich was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for THE PLAGUE OF DOVES, a prequel of sorts to her 14th and current stunning novel, which I believe will take home that coveted prize.”

Click here to see all of this year’s National Book Award finalists. The winners will be announced on the evening of Wednesday, November 14th.

And in more awards news, the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Chinese author Mo Yan, “who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary,” according to the citation read by Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. Yan’s best known book is RED SORGHUM. Spanning three generations, this novel of family and myth is told through a series of flashbacks that depict events of staggering horror set against a landscape of gemlike beauty, as the Chinese battle both Japanese invaders and each other in the turbulent 1930s.

Fans of historical fiction will devour ILLUMINATIONS by Mary Sharratt, which is based on the life of Hildegard von Bingen, a Benedictine abbess, visionary and polymath. From the age of eight, Hildegard was locked in a small room where she was expected to live as a silent handmaiden to another nun, Jutta von Sponheim. When Jutta died many years later, Hildegard broke out of her confinement with a calling from God to liberate herself and her sisters to better serve Him. Reviewer Donna Volkenannt calls the book “a fascinating work of historical fiction” and says that “Sharratt’s rich details and extensive research portray Hildegard’s life in an authentic voice from the time the visionary is a child until her death as an abbess in 1179.”

There’s one more week left to enter our latest Sneak Peek: An Early Look at an Upcoming Book Contest, which is spotlighting CLOSE MY EYES by Sophie McKenzie, a riveting psychological thriller about a grieving mother who finds out years after her daughter’s death that her child may still be alive. You have until Thursday, October 18th at noon ET to enter to read one of 50 early copies of this intriguing novel, which will be published in July 2013. Please note that we need you to ensure that you can read this book by Tuesday, November 20th --- and comment on it --- in order for you to be entered to win. The publisher is looking for your comments, and we do not want to disappoint them by not having 50 participating readers!

My latest Bookreporter.com Bets On selection is SOME GIRLS, SOME HATS AND HITLER: A True Love Story Rediscovered by Trudi Kanter. This vivid memoir, rediscovered after the author’s death, tells the story of a Jewish hat maker and her husband giving up their lives in Vienna to outrun the rule of Hitler. This is the story of the couple’s journey from Vienna, to Prague, to London and the courage, resourcefulness and perseverance that saved their lives. Click here to see why I’m highly recommending it.

Our poll about your favorite TV shows will be up for another week. In March, we asked which programs you watch on a regular basis. It turned out to be one of the most popular polls we’ve ever done! So we decided to ask the question again, along with a new one: “Are you interested in reading books that have similar plots to these television shows?” Click here to weigh in.

Let us know what you’re reading by Friday, October 19th at noon ET, and you’ll be entered in our Word of Mouth contest to win the aforementioned RED RAIN, along with THE PANTHER by Nelson DeMille and THE TWELVE by Justin Cronin, both of which will be reviewed next week.

I have said it before, but I am saying it again here --- THE PANTHER is Nelson’s best book in years. The novel is set in Yemen, and with the current heated situation in the Middle East, readers will see just how complicated things can get out there in the desert through the eyes of John Corey and his wife, Kate. It's a whole other world with a situation so unsafe that Nelson did not travel to the region for research; he was told he would need two bodyguards 24/7 if he went!

As we know, MANY adult readers enjoy Young Adult books. Curious as to what spurs people to read, buy and enjoy YA books, as well as getting a profile of YA readers, we have posted a link for YA readers to answer our 2012 YA Reader Survey here. It will take about 25 minutes to do --- but those who complete it are entered to win one of 450(!) young adult titles that we will be giving away when the survey closes, with thanks to our publisher friends who contributed them. May we also ask you to share this with other YA readers and teens who you know? The survey is open until November 30th, but we love people who respond early! Once a survey like this goes up, we always are peeking at the replies.

Last weekend in Cleveland I met Greg Bardsley, the author of CASH OUT, a wild romp of a book about a young guy who has given his blood and sweat to his tech company in Silicon Valley. He is days away from cashing out when....well, a whole lot happens and suddenly all the cash out is in jeopardy. In this world where making quick money is all the rage, it's quite dead-on.

I am headed over to New York Comic Con with Cory and his friend Josh tomorrow; I was too busy at the end of this week to get over there. However, we had a really fun Comic Con Kickoff Party at the office on Wednesday night. We have parties where people twirl in and out for a glass of wine or a beer, as there is always someone to chat up; always a fun evening full of surprises. We always have a dozen different kinds of cheese, I make olive tapenade, and the whole staff pitches in for setup and cleanup. Love it.

On Sunday night, "The Walking Dead" is back, further complicating the Sunday night DVR situation, which now includes "Homeland" (which luckily I have a press screener of; it gets better and better), "Dexter" (I also have screener of this, which is getting more and more complicated), "The Good Wife", and I am vowing NOT to get into "Revenge".

I have been reading a couple of really good books…more on those next week. I want you to get right to reading this week’s lineup now!

Carol Fitzgerald (Carol@bookreporter.com)

PS. When you use the links below to purchase books, you also support Bookreporter.com as we have affiliate arrangements with each of them. Please consider this when shopping for books online!

THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB by Will Schwalbe (Memoir)
This is the inspiring true story of a son and his mother, who start a “book club” that brings them together as her life comes to a close. Over the next two years, Will and Mary Anne carry on conversations that are both wide-ranging and deeply personal, prompted by an eclectic array of books and a shared passion for reading. Reviewed by Carole Turner.

-Click here to read more about the book.
-Click here to read an excerpt.
-Click here for the reading group guide.
-Click here to see why we’re betting you’ll love this book.

RED RAIN by R.L. Stine (Horror)
In the aftermath of a storm, travel writer Lea Sutter discovers twin orphaned boys. Filled with a desire to do something to help, she impulsively decides to adopt them. The boys, Samuel and Daniel, seem amiable and immensely grateful. But no one can anticipate their true nature --- or predict that, within a few weeks’ time, Lea’s husband will wind up implicated in two brutal murders. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.

-Click here to read more about the book.

LIVE BY NIGHT by Dennis Lehane (Historical Thriller)
Set against a dazzling backdrop of Prohibition-era American cities ranging from Jazz Age Boston to Tampa's Latin Quarter, Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a Boston Police captain, defies his orthodox upbringing to journey up the dizzying ladder of organized crime. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

-Click here to read more about the book.
 

PHANTOM by Jo Nesbo (Thriller)
Former police officer Harry Hole must return to Oslo when the son of the woman he loves is arrested for murder. In order to prove the boy's innocence, Harry sets out on a dangerous investigation that takes him into the world of the most virulent drug to ever hit the streets of Oslo (and the careers of some of the city's highest officials). Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

-Click here to read more about the book.
-Click here to read an excerpt.

THE ROUND HOUSE by Louise Erdrich (Mystery)
The victim of a recent attack, Geraldine Coutts is reluctant to relive or reveal to anyone what happened. She will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Her son, Joe, becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning. Reviewed by L. Dean Murphy.

-Click here to read more about the book.
-Click here for the reading group guide.

THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde (Mystery)
The Bookworld’s leading enforcement officer, Thursday Next, has been forced into a semiretirement following an assassination attempt, returning home to recuperate. But with Goliath attempting to replace Thursday at every opportunity with synthetic Thursdays, and a call from the Bookworld to hunt down Pagerunners who have jumped into the Realworld, her convalescence is going to be anything but restful. Reviewed by Steve Hubbard.

-Click here to read more about the book.

SOME GIRLS, SOME HATS AND HITLER: A True Love Story Rediscovered by Trudi Kanter (Memoir)
A version of SOME GIRLS, SOME HATS AND HITLER by Trudi Kanter had been self-published in 1984 and was re-discovered by a British editor in 2011. This will be the first time it is available to a wide audience. It’s a memoir of Trudi’s life growing up as a fashionable hat designer in Vienna. She falls for a man named Walter Ehrlich, who sweeps her off her feet. Life is lovely until Hitler rolls into Austria, and this Jewish couple is desperate to leave the country any way they can. They learn of visas being given to those who want to leave, but time is running out quickly as the tanks march into town.

-Click here to read more about the book.
-Click here to see all the books we’re betting you’ll love.

JOSEPH ANTON: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie (Memoir)
How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for more than nine years? How does he go on working? How does he fall in and out of love? How does despair shape his thoughts and actions, how and why does he stumble, how does he learn to fight back? In this remarkable memoir, Salman Rushdie tells that story for the first time --- the story of one of the crucial battles, in our time, for freedom of speech. Reviewed by Roz Shea.

-Click here to read more about the book.

ILLUMINATIONS: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen by Mary Sharratt (Historical Fiction)
Offered to the Church at the age of eight, Hildegard von Bingen was entombed in a small room where she was expected to live out her days in silent submission. Instead, she found comfort and grace in studying books, growing herbs, and rejoicing in her own secret visions of the divine. Some 30 years later, Hildegard broke out of her prison with the heavenly calling to speak and write about her visions and to liberate her sisters and herself from the soul-destroying anchorage. Reviewed by Donna Volkenannt.

-Click here to read more about the book.

NYPD RED by James Patterson and Marshall Karp (Thriller)
A special NYPD task force is charged with monitoring Hollywood on the Hudson, an event that brings more celebrities than usual to New York. A producer fatally collapses at a breakfast, and Detective Zach Jordan and his new partner/ex-girlfriend Kylie Mac Donald must solve some of the most brutal crimes they've encountered that are sending New York City into chaos. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

-Click here to read an excerpt.

SWEET TALK by Julie Garwood (Romantic Suspense)
Olivia MacKenzie is a beautiful and tough young attorney working for the IRS. As she tracks down bad guys related to a Ponzi scheme, she asks questions about some of the wrong people and finds her life in immediate danger. Realizing she's in over her head, she calls in handsome FBI agent Grayson Kincaid. Olivia can fight thugs and corruption, but can she battle her attraction to Kincaid? Reviewed by Hillary Wagy.

GOLDBERG VARIATIONS by Susan Isaacs (Fiction)
Elegant, amusing and profoundly nasty tycoon Gloria Garrison is shocked that none of her three grandchildren are interested in inheriting her brilliant, booming beauty business. What’s so grand about their lives that they would reject such a kingdom? Memories have a way of intruding at the most inopportune times. Is Gloria’s tough hide as impenetrable as she has always believed? Reviewed by Jennifer McCord.

MARVEL COMICS: The Untold Story by Sean Howe (Popular Culture)
Drawing on more than 100 original interviews with Marvel insiders then and now, MARVEL COMICS is a story of fertile imaginations, lifelong friendships, action-packed fistfights, reformed criminals, unlikely alliances, and third-act betrayals --- a narrative of one of the most extraordinary, beloved and beleaguered pop cultural entities in America's history. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

HOW I CAME TO SPARKLE AGAIN by Kaya McLaren (Fiction)
Jill Anthony finds her husband in bed with another woman; Lisa Carlucci is sick and tired of having meaningless sex; and 10-year-old Cassie Jones no longer believes in anything anymore after losing her mother to cancer. The lives of these three people, who are at the crossroads of heartbreak and healing, will be changed one winter in Sparkle. Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon.

SALVATION OF A SAINT by Keigo Higashino (Mystery)
Yoshitaka, who was about to leave his marriage and his wife, is poisoned by arsenic-laced coffee and dies. His wife, Ayane, is the logical suspect --- except that she was hundreds of miles away when he was murdered. The lead detective refuses to believe that she could have had anything to do with the crime. His assistant, however, is convinced Ayane is guilty and calls upon Professor Manabu Yukawa to solve this impossible murder. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

THE DANGERS OF PROXIMAL ALPHABETS by Kathleen Alcott (Fiction)
Ida, yearning to fill a void in her life from growing up in a single-parent household, forms a familial-like bond with her neighbors, two brothers named Jackson and James. Fissures form in the trio when Ida and Jackson start to fall for one another, discovering the dangers of love in the process. Reviewed by Melanie Smith.

THE FACILITY by Simon Lelic (Thriller)
Simon Lelic introduces readers to a totalitarian near-future Britain wherein citizens are snatched from their daily lives and imprisoned in a clandestine, government-controlled facility in order to protect the so-called greater good. Only one socially conscious journalist has an opportunity to expose this injustice --- if he can keep himself from being locked up in the process. Reviewed by Ray Palen.

We have a number of contests currently running on our other sites in TheBookReportNetwork.com. Please take a look at them below, and enter for your chance to win some fabulous books!

ReadingGroupGuides.com

THE PAINTED GIRLS by Cathy Marie Buchanan
We are celebrating the forthcoming release of THE PAINTED GIRLS by Cathy Marie Buchanan --- a romantic, exhilarating novel set during Belle Époque Paris and inspired by the real-life model of Degas’s Little Dancer Aged 14 --- with a special contest. 50 readers will have the opportunity to each win an advance copy of the book, which will be in stores on January 10th, for their group. The deadline for entries is Monday, November 5th at noon ET.

EVERYTHING WAS GOOD-BYE by Gurjinder Basran
We are celebrating the forthcoming release of EVERYTHING WAS GOOD-BYE by Gurjinder Basran --- a heartbreaking and riveting story about a young woman caught between a clash of cultures and the intricate bond between mothers and daughters that transcends boundaries --- with a special contest. 50 readers will have the opportunity to each win an advance copy of the book, which will be in stores on December 31st, for their group. The deadline for entries is Monday, November 5th at noon ET.

“What Are You Reading?” Monthly Contest Feature: THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB by Will Schwalbe
Let us know what your group is reading in October, and you’ll be entered in a giveaway to win multiple copies of a book for your group! Our latest prize book is THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB by Will Schwalbe, the inspiring true story of a son and his mother who start a “book club” that brings them together as her life comes to a close. We have 12 copies of the book, which is in stores now, to give away to three groups. The deadline for entries is Monday, November 5th at noon ET.

Teenreads.com

Book O'Lantern
We are celebrating the season of ghouls and ghosts with our Third Annual Book O'Lantern Contest! Between now and Friday, October 19th, teens can enter to win a bag perfect for trick-or-treating, filled with a few special sweet treats, plus some spooky reads that will help make the scariest season of them all last well beyond Halloween.

THE CRIMSON SHARD by Teresa Flavin
We are celebrating the release of THE CRIMSON SHARD --- in which two children step through a doorway into 18th-century England during a seemingly normal museum visit --- with a special contest. Fifteen readers will have the opportunity to win a copy of Teresa Flavin's follow-up to THE BLACKHOPE ENIGMA. The deadline for entries is Friday, October 19th at noon ET.

Grab Bag of Books
Winners of our latest Grab Bag of Books contest will each receive a copy of THE DEAD GIRLS DETECTIVE AGENCY by Suzy Cox, FANG GIRL by Helen Keeble and SAFEKEEPING by Karen Hesse. The deadline for entries is Thursday, November 1st at noon ET.

Word of Mouth
Send us your current reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars. This contest period, one teen reader will be randomly chosen to win a copy of SON by Lois Lowry and ZOM-B by Darren Shan. The deadline for entries is Thursday, November 1st at noon ET.

Kidsreads.com

THE GOLDEN DOOR by Emily Rodda
To celebrate the release of THE GOLDEN DOOR, the start of a stirring fantasy trilogy from the internationally bestselling author of the Dragons of Deltora series, Kidsreads.com is giving 25 readers the chance to win a copy of the book. The deadline for entries is Monday, November 5th at noon ET.

SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS by Laura Amy Schlitz
To celebrate the release of SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS, a Victorian gothic thriller from Newbery Medal winner Laura Amy Schlitz, Kidsreads.com is giving 15 readers the chance to win a copy of the book. The deadline for entries is Monday, October 15th at noon ET.

FaithfulReader.com

Secrets of the Cross Trilogy by Elizabeth Musser
We are celebrating the release of TWO DESTINIES, the conclusion to Elizabeth Musser's Secrets of the Cross Trilogy, with a special contest that will give 25 readers the opportunity to win all three books in the series (which also includes TWO CROSSES and TWO TESTAMENTS). In addition, one of these winners will be awarded a Huguenot cross that Elizabeth herself is providing. The deadline for entries is Monday, October 15th at noon ET.

THE BREAKTHROUGH: A Precinct 11 Novel by Jerry B. Jenkins
We are celebrating the release of THE BREAKTHROUGH with a special contest that will give 10 readers the opportunity to win a copy of this conclusion to Jerry B. Jenkins' Precinct 11 trilogy. The deadline for entries is Monday, October 15th at noon ET.

A PLAIN AND SIMPLE HEART: The Amish of Apple Grove, Book 1 by Lori Copeland and Virginia Smith
We are celebrating the release of A PLAIN AND SIMPLE HEART with a special contest that will give 75 readers the opportunity to win a copy of this first installment in Lori Copeland and Virginia Smith's The Amish of Apple Grove series. The deadline for entries is Monday, October 15th at noon ET.

MAN IN THE BLUE MOON by Michael Morris
We are celebrating the release of MAN IN THE BLUE MOON by Michael Morris --- in which hypocrisy and murder shake the coastal town of Apalachicola --- with a special contest that will give 10 readers the opportunity to win a copy of the book. The deadline for entries is Monday, October 15th at noon ET.

FaithfulReader.com's Monthly Contest: TAMING THE WIND: Land of the Lone Star, Book 3 by Tracie Peterson
In our latest monthly contest, 30 readers each will be awarded a copy of TAMING THE WIND, the third installment of Tracie Peterson's Land of the Lone Star series. The deadline for entries is Monday, October 15th at noon ET.

Which of the following television shows do you enjoy on a regular basis?

Are you interested in reading books that have similar plots to these television shows?

Tell us your current reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars. During the contest period from October 5th to October 19th, FIVE lucky readers each will be randomly chosen to win a copy of THE PANTHER by Nelson DeMille, RED RAIN by R. L. Stine and THE TWELVE by Justin Cronin.

To make sure other readers will be able to find the books you write about, please include the full title and correct author names (your entry must include these to be eligible to win). For complete rules and guidelines, click here.

-To see reader comments from previous contest periods, click here.