To Sin With A Scoundrel / Review

Author: Cara Elliott

Mass Market Paperback:

384 pages
Publisher: Forever; Original edition (March 1, 2010) ISBN-10: 044654129X

Book Description:

A reclusive widow known for her scientific scholarship, Lady Ciara Sheffield is shadowed by rumors that she poisoned her husband . . . A rakehell rogue notorious for his devil-may-care antics, Lucas Bingham--the Earl of Hadley--is not accused of murdering anything--save for the rules of Polite Society. The only thing they have in common is seeing their names featured in the lurid gossip columns of London's newspapers. Until an ancient manuscript draws them together. Ciara needs a titled fiancé to quell the slanderous speculations which may send her to the gallows. Lucas needs brilliant scholar to help his elderly uncle decipher the secrets of the mysterious manuscript. So when her friends urge her to accept the earl's proposal of a temporary alliance, Ciara decides that she has no choice but to make a deal with the Devil.

And so begins a seductive dance of sinful pleasures and hidden desires as the two of them waltz through the mansions of Mayfair. Lies, intrigue, treachery, sex. They find themselves facing slanderous whispers, unscrupulous relatives-not to speak of their own simmering passions, which quickly ignite into dangerous flames. It's a potent mix and the result may be explosive-and perhaps deadly-if they don't watch their step.

My Review:

Cara Elliott has skillfully created a five star, exciting, sexy read. Well-written. Magnificently compelling! I've become a fan!

(Thanks to Hachette Book Group for my review copy.)

The Randolph Women & Their Men / Review

Author: Ruth Doumlele

Paperback: 292 pages
Publisher: Book Publishers Network;

1st edition (March 10, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1935359258

Book Description:

The Randolph Women and Their Men paints a rich and vivid portrait of post-Revolution life in the South on the scale of Gone With the Wind--only this story is true. A professional historian, Ruth Doumlele has cleverly woven the many lives of the famous and infamous of that time into one seamless narrative. While the Randolphs hold center stage, their exploits bring them together with those influential people--such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison--who determined our nation's legacy. Not only does Doumlele bring to life the significant event of those turbulent years, she also provides a scintillating view of the private lives of the privileged. Incest, betrayal, unrequited love--this book reveals the sometimes shocking, often poignant, always fascinating details of these remarkable women and their men.

About the Author:

Ruth Doumlele lives in Powhaten County, Virginia, a few miles from the Randolph family plantations. She is a member of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution and her Hailey ancestors fought in the same battles as the Randolphs. She holds a bachelor's degree from Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, and a master's degree from the University of Richmond. Ruth writes local and regional history and is a docent at Virginia's circa 1813 Executive Mansion in Richmond, where Thomas Mann Randolph lived as governor, 1819-1822.

My Review:

Informative, historical, exceptional, skillfully written. A must read.

(Thank you to the author for my review copy.)

Alice I Have Been / Review

Author: Melanie Benjamin

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press;

First Edition edition (January 12, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0385344139

Book Description:

Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole–and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.

But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.”

Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year–the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories. That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over.

Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice–he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to.

And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war. For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.

A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.

My Review:

Alice I Have Been is a beautifully written book. The book is expertly crafted and even poetic. It draws the reader in and makes it almost impossible to lay aside until one is finished. I loved it from beginning to end. 5 stars*****

(Thank you to the author for my review copy!)

Countess of Scandal by Laurel McKee

Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Forever; Original edition (February 1, 2010) Language: English

Book Description:

As children, Eliza Blacknall and William Denton ran wild over the fields of southern Ireland and swore they would be friends forever. Then fate took Will away to England, while Eliza stayed behind to become a proper Irish countess. Years later, Will finally makes his way home-as an English soldier sent to crush the Irish uprising. When he spies the lovely Eliza, he is captivated by the passionate woman she has become. But Eliza's passions have led her to join the Irish rebel cause, and Will and Eliza now find themselves on opposite sides of a dangerous conflict.When Ireland explodes in bloody rebellion, Will's regiment is ordered to the front lines, and he is forced to choose between his duty to the English king and his love for Eliza and their Irish homeland.

(Thanks to Hachette Book Group for my advanced copy)

The Winners Are....

The 3 winners of The Pearls of the Stone Man are:

*TEA
*etirv
*Judylynn

Congratulations!

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Book Description:

Married to a powerful government minister, Anna Karenina is a beautiful woman who falls deeply in love with a wealthy army officer, the elegant Count Vronsky. Desperate to find truth and meaning in her life, she rashly defies the conventions of Russian society and leaves her husband and son to live with her lover. Condemned and ostracized by her peers and prone to fits of jealousy that alienate Vronsky, Anna finds herself unable to escape an increasingly hopeless situation.

Set against this tragic affair is the story of Constantin Levin, a melancholy landowner whom Tolstoy based largely on himself. While Anna looks for happiness through love, Levin embarks on his own search for spiritual fulfillment through marriage, family, and hard work. Surrounding these two central plot threads are dozens of characters whom Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together, creating a breathtaking tapestry of nineteenth-century Russian society.

From its famous opening sentence—“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”—to its stunningly tragic conclusion, this enduring tale of marriage and adultery plumbs the very depths of the human soul.

Book Giveaway / The Pearls of the Stone Man

Author: Edward Mooney Jr.

Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark (March 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1402238312

Book Description:

If you've ever loved someone to the depth of your being, someone who for one reason or other needed to move on, you know the power of a parting wish. The story of Joseph and Anne, his wife of fifty-three years, is the story of just such a wish-one that only true love could try to achieve. And for Joseph the strength to build the stone wall-a special reminder from Anne's childhood-will take him places he never expected and that you will never forget.

The Pearls of the Stone Man takes us beyond generations and our own stone walls to the very humanity that unites us all-and shows us the incredible power of one couple's love to last beyond parting and forever change the lives of those they touched.

Giveaway Details:

Sourcebooks has given me the opportunity to give away 3 copies of "The Pearls of the Stone Man." All you need to do to enter is:

*Be or become a follower of Everything Victorian and more...

*Be sure to leave a comment including your email address.

*Giveaway will take place on June 7th, 2010.

Good luck and happy reading!

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

Author: Seth Grahame-Smith

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; First Edition first Printing edition (March 2, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446563080

Review:

The book begins in the year 1818. The setting is a one-room cabin, where nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln watches at his mother's bedside. She's suffering from something called "Milk Sickness." She passes away.

Later when Abe learns that his mother's death was actually the work of a vampire, he sets out to avenge her fate. This knowledge will comsume his life.

From the inside jacket of book: While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.
Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation..

(Thank you to Hachette Book Group for my review copy.)

Lessons In French

Author: Laura Kinsale
Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca (January 26, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1402237014

Laura Kinsale's Lessons in French is a well-told historical romance, which also has it's humorous side. At the age of twenty-seven, Lady Callista Taillefaire has settled into the life of a country spinster, breeding cattle on her estate. But her quiet existence is turned upside down when a love from the past, Trevelyan d'Augustin, comes back into her life. Not wanting to be a "spoiler" I just want to say that Lessons in French has everything a historical novel should have: history about the era, romance, peppered with a little suspense and wit.

Searching for Pemberley

Author: Mary Lydon Simonsen
Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark (December 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1402224397






My Review:

On a trip to England, after World War II, an American woman, Maggie James, sets out to investigate a rumor concerning Jane Austen's writing of literature's famous Pride and Prejudice. The history of Pemberley begins to open as she meets the residents of a beautiful stately mansion in the countryside. Was this the actual home of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy? Through reading a series of old documents, Maggie begins to unravel the history and personalities behind one of the most beloved romances in literature.

The author's writing flows with ease from page to page, making it an easy, fast read. It's a story that brings new insight, meaning, and possibilities to an old favorite that is sure to fascinate Austen fans.

(Thanks to SourceBooks for my review copy.)

THE WINNER IS.....

The winner of Willoughby's Return is Laura Hartness. Congratulations! Please send me an email with your mailing address.

Thanks to all who entered.

Jane Odiwe: Author of "Willoughby's Return" Interview + Book Giveaway

Author: Jane Odiwe
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
(November 1, 2009)
ISBN-10: 140222267X

Dear Friends,

We are so fortunate today to be interviewing, Jane Odiwe, author of the new Jane Austen sequel, Willoughby's Return. Her publisher, SourceBooks, is also giving away one brand new copy of the book, to a lucky reader of this interview--you can find out how to enter at the end of the posting. Happy reading!

Now to our interview:

1. What inspired you to write about the main character?

I’ve always had a soft spot for Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility. She’s a heroine who wears her heart on her sleeve and never loves by halves. In Jane Austen’s book Marianne has two great love affairs – firstly, with the dashing Mr Willoughby, who ignites the feelings of her first great passion but who lets her down badly, and secondly, with Colonel Brandon, an older, steadier man who is the real hero, the one she marries. The ending of Sense and Sensibility surprises some readers who can’t believe that Marianne really loves the Colonel enough to marry him. This intrigued me, and the fact that she is a character we easily identify with – I’m sure most people have known a Willoughby at some stage in their lives, but have been able to move on and find lasting, true love with somebody who really suits them. Colonel Brandon has also suffered from the disappointment of a first love and I wanted to explore not only their relationship but also how the impact of those first attachments might affect their lives together.

2. What is your favorite line from this book?

Gosh, what a good question! This is a difficult one, but when Marianne meets Willoughby again and has to be escorted into dinner by him she finds herself in a very difficult situation. Here’s the line: Despite purposefully leaning as far away from him as she was able, she could not help but be aware of his nearness, and of his smell, emanating like an elixir from a bygone age, mingled into a potpourri of fragrant images from the past.

3. When did you know you wanted to be a writer and how long have you been developing your craft?

I was a very small girl when I first started writing, but then I wanted to write and illustrate children’s books. I still have a series of little books about the ‘Smiles Family’ that I made when I was about eight or nine. I think it’s taken a lifetime to develop my craft and I’m still learning now!

4. Is reading a large part of your life? Which book/books made the biggest impact on your writing?

Of course Jane Austen is a huge influence. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and all of her books have made the biggest impact. But I also love any books by Frances Hodgson Burnett, (The Making of a Marchioness) Edith Wharton, (The Age of Innocence) and Fanny Burney (Evelina) to name but a few of my favourite writers. There are so many wonderful books out there that it’s hard to choose. Writers of the past rather than the present are my biggest influence because those are the books I tend to prefer – I love the quality of writing that you get in an older book.

5. Who is your favorite writer?

No contest – Jane Austen. Her books have been the pleasure of my life and the reason I have become a published writer. She is recognised now as a genius, but I wish she had known in her lifetime how her writing would eventually be regarded - how much her work is revered and loved today!

6. Does storytelling run in your family?

We all enjoy a good book or story. My parents encouraged us to read and told stories when I was young. I hope I’ve passed this love of storytelling to my children. My husband is a brilliant storyteller – I think he’d write a marvellous book.

7. When creating the story, which is the most difficult, the beginning, middle, or ending?

The middle is the most difficult for me, most definitely. I think you have to be able to keep the reader interested in turning the pages and keeping up the momentum being careful not to give too much away too early and tying it all up too soon before you get to the end.

8. What is the writing process like for you? Are you a morning person or night person? Do you have a special place you like to go to for inspiration? What energizes you?

I am a morning person, but that can mean very early morning. Sometimes, I wake at three in the morning with an idea, and I have to write it down because if I don’t I’ll forget it before I wake up again the next day. I think I must be solving problems in my sleep because this happens quite a lot. There is something lovely about writing in the early hours when there is no one about – my little writing room is next door to my bedroom so it’s very easy to pop in there and switch on the computer. I love my room, I am so lucky to have one all of my own. It’s lined with books, and filled with objects, pictures and paintings that I love. I have a desk before the window and watch all the world pass by whilst I’m writing. It’s great inspiration.

9. What advice would you have for emerging writers?

Keep striving to learn how you can improve your writing, and read, read read! Remember why you started writing in the first place when you get bogged down with problems – that’s sometimes forgotten when you are in pursuit of getting published and you’ve just received a rejection letter.

10. What is the most rewarding thing about being a writer?

I sometimes get to meet the people who have read my books – I can’t tell you the thrill it is when someone tells me or writes to tell me that they enjoyed a particular book. I indulge myself in my favourite activity on a daily basis and also get to spend huge chunks of the day in another century in Jane Austen’s world (or my version of it, at least) – what more could anyone wish?!

Thank you, Ms. Odiwe, for the interesting answers and much good luck with your new book.

Readers please remember: SourceBooks is giving away one brand new copy of "Willoughby's Return."

To enter:

*Please leave a comment with your email address for 1 point
*Become a Follower for 5 points (tell me if you already are)
*You must be a resident of the USA or Canada to win.

*Winner will be announced on November 10, 2009

(Thank you to SourceBooks for the giveaway copy)

My Review of Willoughby's Return can be found below.