In The Arms Of Mr. Darcy by Sharon Lathan

Devotees of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice will be interested to see what author Sharon Lathan has done with these characters in her sequel book, In The Arms Of Mr. Darcy.  Lathan has written several books in this series; Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One; Loving Mr. Darcy: Journey Beyond Pemberley and My Dearest Mr. Darcy.

In this edition, the reader visits the Darcy's the winter after their son and the heir to Pemberley has been born.  Both parents dote on their newborn, as do all their relatives and friends.  Although it is considered a bit strange that Elizabeth chooses to nurse her son rather than employ a wet nurse, no one dares to voice any surprise that the fond parents want to see to their son's care themselves.

In addition to the relationship between Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy, there are others who are entering the courts of love.  Darcy's sister Georgina is entering her debutant days, as is Kitty Bennett, Elizabeth's sister.  We see them at a splendid ball, and get a sense of the manners and norms of courting.  Darcy's good friend, Richard, home from the military, has fallen in love with a widow and asks Darcy's advice.  There are other relationships that develop, some surprising in their intensity and some remaining safely contained in the shoals of society's strictures.

The reader is transported to the start of the Industrial Revolution in England.  It is a land of titled nobles and servants and a group of professionals, but most of the power, money and influence is concentrated in a few noble hands.  The daily life in large manor houses is amazing for modern readers to contemplate, and Lathan does an excellent job of outlining what such a daily routine consisted of.  This book is recommended for readers who loved Austen's work and are interested to see the story continue.

A Cure For All Diseases by Reginald Hill

Sandytown is the perfect seaside resort.  It's newest venture is advertising itself as a health resort.  There is already a world-class clinic, and a local group is bringing in alternative therapists also.  There's a plan to turn the local manor house into a luxury hotel/spa and all seems ducky.  The main partners in the venture are Lady Denham, who is the local gentry, and Tom Parker, who is interested in the alternative therapies and is the general cheerleader for the project.

All's well until a local gathering is interrupted by the discovery of the body of Lady Denham.  It seems there are a myriad of suspects.  In addition to Tom Parker, Lady Denham had several relatives who wanted to be her heirs.  There are also local characters who she has insulted or treated shabbily.  On top of this, there are secrets with some of the alternative healers.

The case falls to Peter Pascoe, who is heading up Yorkshire police in the absence of Andy Danziel.  But Daziel is on the spot---he's recuperating from a terrorist bombing at the clinic.  The entire cast of characters from this series are on the spot, along with some former villians and new intriguing characters.

The Dalziel-Pascoe series in one of my absolute favorites.  Hill writes breezily and humour comes through in the speeches of his characters.  The mysteries are densely plotted, and the reader is usually surprised by the ending.  This book is highly recommended for all mystery lovers, and if you haven't read any of the series, you'll want to go back and read them all!

Fat Chick by Lorraine Duffy Merkl

We meet Trish Collins as she is on top of her world.  Finally, a perfect size zero, she has a great job at an ad agency representing TREND, the most sought-after fashion magazine.  She has a great relationship with her boyfriend, who is also the personal trainer who helped her get a toned and muscular body.  She isn't hurting for anything....

The book then goes back and portrays Trish's life when she was fat.  Losing her father early, she stuffed her pain with food.  She continues to eat until she is large, every taunt and male rejection just fueling her appetite as she turns again and again to the friend that never rejects, food.

Finally, she has had enough and decides this is the time she will make a real difference.  She joins a program, joins a gym, and over months, gets thin and thinner and thinner.  Her life is now perfect, or is it?

Lorraine Duffy Merkl has created a woman that will find a touchpoint with most women.  Most of us have wished for thinner bodies or wished we were even thinner, typing our self-worth to how many pounds show on the scale and what size we can buy in the department store.  She shows Trish's struggles with sterotypical rejections and then flips the mirror and shows the pros and cons of being super-thin.  The writing is breezy and the characters sometimes shallow, but this is intentional on the author's part as she shows the archtypes that rule women's places in society.   This book is recommended for women readers and males that want to understand the enormous part weight and self-image play in almost every woman's life.

What Alice Knew by Paula Marantz Cohen

Has there ever been a more satisfactory villian than Jack the Ripper?  His identity as the first publicized serial killer, the depravity of his acts, and the fact that he was never conclusively identified has made his fame more eternal, as each person can configure the facts to fit their own ideas of who he must have been.

In What Alice Knew, Paula Marantz Cohen has contrucked an interesting premise in which the James siblings, Henry, William and Alice, come together to identify Jack the Ripper.  William has been asked by Scotland Yard to come over from America to lend his psychological expertise.  Henry is a member in good standing of London society, and his talent as a novelist often leads him to notice relationships that others are oblivious to.  Alice, their invalid sister, has necessarily concentrated her powers to delve into others' minds and thoughts.  Together they make a formidable team.

The facts of the Ripper's crimes are all here, but don't overwhelm the reader.  Other famous people make appearances, including Oscar Wilde, John Singer Sargent, Samuel Clemens and James Whistler.  Each familiar name and the portrayal of their world helps the reader understand how shocking these crimes were and how they were the talk of every table and meetingplace in London.  Can William, James and Alice find a way to uncover the identity of this man before he kills again?

Cohen has created an intriguing world.  A Distinguished Professor of English at Drexel University, she has the necessary knowledge of the period to make a very believable world, from the cream of society to the servants who organize the lives of these men and women, to those unfortunates mired in poverty and brutish lives.  In addition, she knows the worlds of art, literature and education that give the book its realistic feel.  This book is recommended for mystery lovers and those interested in the James family and their social strata. 

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is a set of vignettes told from the male viewpoint.  Some are quite short, while others are much more lengthy.  Not for the faint-hearted, there is lots of talk about sex and some raunchy language.

My favorite tale was told by a man who picked up a woman for casual sex and ended up being moved by her life story.  Hitchhiking, she was picked up by a serial sex offender/murderer, and managed to save her own life by talking the man out of his need to kill her by empathizing with him.  The man starts out by regarding the woman lightly, just another plaything, but her story makes him realise that she has depth and is someone to be taken seriously.

Another favorite is the retelling of that first time on the high diving board (not that many pools still have these due to insurance concerns).  Wallace captures the moment completely, using every sense to vividly place the reader out there on the board as they smell, see, hear everything the diver does.  No detail is too small for Wallace to remember and comment on.

The writing is gorgeous even when the topics are disturbing.  I can't think of an author who writes more concretely about the details of an event.  This is definately not a book that feminists will applaud; the men here are brazen, outspoken and often churlish.  But the reader will not soon forget these stories.  This book is recommended for readers who like to dip into books and read one or two stories at a time.

The Last War by Ana Menendez

They had the perfect marriage.  Brando was a journalist, Flash was a photographer.  Together they roamed the world, documenting wars for audiences safely at home.  Now Brando is in Iraq in the early days of the war, embedded with the troops, while Flash waits in Istanbul for her visa.  At first, she misses him immensely, but as the days pass, she wonders if she wants to follow him one more time, if this war will be any different from all the others.

Then the letter comes.  A sly, smug letter, informing her that Brando is living with another woman.  She doesn't recognize the name of the letter writer, although the author writes as if she knows the couple well.  Flash is torn.  Fiercely rejecting the news one minute, down in the depths of depression and validating it the next, she doesn't know what to believe.  Days go by.  Brando continues to call most days but she doesn't mention the letter to him.  She wants to see his face when she asks.

As she wanders Istanbul, she keeps seeing a mysterious woman in Muslim garb, who seems to be following her.  After several encounters, she confronts the woman and discovers that it is a former acquaintance, Alexandra.  Alexandra is a writer, fixer, mover, who floats from culture to culture, always in demand but never that close to anyone.  Flash and Brando met her and her young Arab lover years before in a convoy in Afghanistan, and have run into her over the years since.

In the next weeks, Alexandra seems to take Flash on as a project.  She forces her to get out and about, telling her there is no truth to the letter.  Kind and sympathetic one day, she is cruel and dismissive the next.   This leaves Flash in more disarray than ever, never knowing from one moment what is true and what is false, who can be believed and who will betray her.

I. Loved. This. Book.  It engages the reader on the first page and never lets go.  Everyone has had the experience of loving someone, and reading about the agony of wondering if that love has been betrayed struck to the heart.  As the author reveals layer upon layer of the characters, showing past events that have led to the current stages and hinting at causes, the reader is entranced.  The mood is languorous with an undertone of menace.  As the best books do, it makes the reader question what they know about life and love.  This book is recommended for all readers.

Ashes To Water by Irene Ziegler

Annie Bartlett has returned to her hometown and the memories she fled from years ago. She received a call that her father, Ed,  has been murdered and his current girlfriend has been charged.  Annie and her sister, Leigh, grew up in a household full of anger and recrimination.  Her father was a serial adulterer and her mother, a nurse, committed suicide when the girls were still young. 

Leigh grew up to be the girl she thought her father was attracted to as she attempted to get his attention.  Flitting from man to man, her beauty her weapon, she has become mired in addiction and a dead-end life.  Annie took a different route.  She rejected everything about her upbringing and left town the minute she could get enough money to do so.  She has carved out a good life for herself, engaged to a man she loves and has a career as a photographer.

Now both girls are back and trying to make sense of what has occurred to their father.  Did the girlfriend kill him over another woman as the police believe?  Or were the other tensions in town involved?  There is an arsonist at large and Ed seemed to know something about that.  Then there is the struggle between developers who wanted Ed's lakeside house and the people in town who were fighting against having their area changed from a sleepy lakeside town to a major tourist area replete with casinos and the crime and changes that brings.  Can Annie find out what has happened before the town pulls her back into her former life and the heartbreak it brought?  Will the truths she learns as she struggles to find out what has occurred help her also make sense of her upbringing?

Irene Ziegler has written an engaging mystery.  Her characters are complex and the plot twists and turns satisfactorily.  In addition to the mystery, there are themes of past issues resolution, conflict between development and tradition, and the struggle of characters to move past what was done to them as children and to become strong, independent adults.  This book is recommended for mystery lovers.

A Separate Country by Robert Hicks

In A Separate Country, Robert Hicks takes the reader to post-Civil War New Orleans.  The book follows the life of General John Hood and his family in this period.   General Hood came to New Orleans as a feared and respected man, a Confederate general who led forces and unleashed chaos upon the land.

After the war, he flounders trying to find what his new life will be.  Grievously injured with one leg missing and one arm that won't work, he isn't sure he even knows how to fit into society when he isn't needed to lead men to war.  He finds his purpose when he meets and marries Anna Marie Hennen, a famous New Orleans society beauty.  Hood and Anna Marie have eleven children. 

Hood introduces the reader to the intricacies of Southern society.  There are cotton brokers, lotteries, freed slaves now attempting to make a living, and men in societies formed for the sole purpose of refusing African-Americans their rights.  There are many orphans who also claw and fight for a chance at a new life once their family ties have been cut asunder by war.  There are men that learn to fit in, and those who are so damaged by the war that they never find redemption.

This book is highly recommended for lovers of historical fiction.  It is rife with complex characters.  There is Rintrah and Pascale, orphans who run away from the orphanage and carve out lives for themselves.  Pascale has both black and white heritage and sometimes passes as a white man, a scheme for which he pays dearly.  Rintrah is a dwarf who fights and schemes until he controls much of the underworld of the city.  Father Mike is a priest who isn't priestly, except when the yellow fever plague arrives.  He recruits all these characters along with John Hood to fight the plague and try to save the poor people of the city who are it's first and most severely affected victims. 

Hicks has created a city where the reader feels they could walk down the streets and encounter people they know.  The characters are intricate and Hicks outlines the various relationships that tie them together.  He explores what it means to be a man at war, and a man who seeks redemption.  This is an extremely satisfying book, and readers won't be disappointed. 

The Hypnotist by M.J. Rose

Lucian Glass's life was defined by one moment in time.  As a young art student, he arrived at a galley to find his girlfriend murdered.  Attacked also, Lucian barely survives.  That event changed his life.  Rather than pursuing a career as an artist, he becomes an FBI agent who specializes in art fraud.

His current case is one of his most challenging.  His long-time nemesis, Dr. Malachi Samuels, is a doctor who explores the fields of reincarnation and past-life regressions.  Glass also believes that he is a mass murderer who kills his way to the treasures he acquires to help in his research.  When the new case evolves, he believes that Samuels must be the mastermind behind the scenes.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is involved in a custody case with Iran.  The Iranian government believes that the museum has wrongfully acquired a statue of Hypnos, the god of sleep.  As they work through the legal intricacies, a new player bursts on the scene.  The museum is sent a masterpiece; a Matisse.  But, the painting has been shredded, ruined beyond restoration.  The sender claims to have four more paintings of the same quality.  He has a proposition.  The museum can give him the statue in return for the paintings, or he will send them one at a time, destroyed.  Glass works the case, sure that his opponent is Samuels, but is he right?  He is also pulled back in time when he becomes involved with his girlfriend's cousin, who has remained in the art world.

Fans of M.J. Rose won't be disappointed in this novel.  Fast-paced with entrancing characters and an exploration of reincarnation and the art world, The Hypnotist is a compelling read.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

The Blessings Of The Animals by Katrina Kittle

Veterinarian Cami Anderson returns from a horse rescue to find her husband of eighteen years packing.  To her shock, he tells her he is moving out.  Even more shocking, within a week she discovers that he is living with a girl not much older than their daughter, a young woman that Cami had employed at her practice.

The Blessings Of The Animals follows Cami's life after this door slams shut on a big piece of her life.  Readers get a viseral sense of what this kind of betrayal feels like.  The book explores the depths of her shock, anger and despair, and how she begins to move beyond the nightmare to carve out a new life that expands her horizons and brings her contentment, love and even joy.

Kittle fills the book with vibrant characters.  There is Gabrielle, the couple's smart, vivacious teenage daughter who reacts by breaking up with her longtime boyfriend and refusing to let anyone get close.  Cami's birth family is introduced.  Her patrician mother and father, who raised her in the horse-racing and training business, show up in stark contrast to her ex-inlaws, who are a extroverted, noisy and nosy bunch.  Her brother is gay and in a relationship that seems very stable.  Friends surround Cami, from her best female friend to a male doctor friend who has been in her life since childhood, and who now wants to make the friendship something more serious.

Then there are the animals.  There is Moonshot, the horribly abused stallion she rescued that day, who comes back to life and health under Cami's care, all the while restoring her own sense of well-being.  There is a comic goat, a rescued three-legged ginger tom, and various other dogs and horses and donkeys.  The animals unfreeze her heart and help her remember what she loved about her career.

What a joy it is to find a book that you can't wait to pick back up!  Kittle's deft portrayal of this common situation and her insight into how life can start over will strike a chord in readers.  This book is highly recommended for all readers.

The Vanishing by Deborah Willis

In the fourteen stories in Vanishing, Deborah Willis explores the ways that we lose people and items that are important to us.  Some are vanish through infidelity and some through physical separation, while others vanish through death or even loving outside accepted boundaries.  In each case, there is the person who vanishes, and those left behind, who must determine how to move on in their lives without the person who is gone.

The opening story, "Vanishing"  is my favorite.  In this story, a playwright father and husband leaves his house one day, never to return.  The story follows his wife and daughter throughout their lives after this event, outlining the various ways that his disappearance changes their lives, even decades later.  The deftness Willis demonstrates in this outline of all the repercussions caused by his decision to leave brings the story close to the reader, and makes them spend time thinking of how their life would change without their loved ones close at hand.

In this first book of fiction, Deborah Willis displays the insight into human decisions that has marked her previous work.  She won the PRISM International annual fiction prize.  She was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and short-listed for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction.  Her work can also be found in The Bridport Prize Anthology, Event, and Grain.  This book is recommended for readers interested in determining how we relate to each other, and what it means when the human connections are broken, either through actions or physical space.

GIVEAWAY!!!! SECRET SPEECH BY TOM SMITH

Tom Rob Smith--the author whose debut, Child 44, has been called "brilliant" (Chicago Tribune), "remarkable" (Newsweek) and "sensational" (Entertainment Weekly)--returns with an intense, suspenseful new novel: a story where the sins of the past threaten to destroy the present, where families must overcome unimaginable obstacles to save their loved ones, and where hope for a better tomorrow is found in the most unlikely of circumstances 

"THE SECRET SPEECH continues the headlong pace of Child 44." --- Wall Street Journal


Tom Rob Smith graduated from Cambridge University in 2001 and lives in London. His first novel, Child 44, was a New York Times bestseller and an international publishing sensation. Among its many honors, Child 44 won the ITW 2009 Thriller Award for Best First Novel, The Strand Magazine 2008 Critics Award for Best First Novel, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. You can visit Tom's website at http://www.tomrobsmith.com/ and follow @tomrobsmith on Twitter.


GIVEAWAY RULES
YOU MUST, MUST, MUST LEAVE AN EMAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR COMMENT. COMMENTS WITHOUT EMAIL ADDRESSES WON'T BE ENTERED.


1. The giveaway starts Sunday, August 15 and ends on Friday, August 27th at midnight.

2. There will be three winners, chosen by random number generation.
3. Winners must have street addresses (no P.O. Boxes) in either the United States or Canada.

4. For one entry, leave a comment (with your email!). You will get an extra entry for any/all of the following; being or becoming a follower, blogging to this giveaway or tweeting about it. If you blog or tweet, please include the link.

5. Winners will be emailed and must respond within three days in order to claim their prize. After three days, another winner will be chosen and notified.

Good luck!

Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese

Twin boys are born in Ethiopia.  A normal event, but this birth was not normal.  These twins were born of a mother who was a nun, someone no one had known was pregnant.  The father was an American surgeon named Thomas Stone.  The nun, Mary Joseph Praise, was Stone's assistant in the surgery and his confidant.  They had been in love for months, but never spoke of it.  Her pregnancy, hid from everyone around, resulted in her death on the delivery table as Stone tried unsuccessfully to save her.

Stunned and shocked, Stone disappears, leaving the boys in the care of two Indian doctors, Ghosh and Hema.  Hema delivered the children after Stone's inability, and claimed the boys as her own when Stone disappeared.  She named the children Marion and Shiva.  The boys grew up in Ethiopia at Missing Hospital, surrounded by love and a close family.  In addition to Hema and Ghosh, Matron and various servants were their family.

The boys had the special relationship that twins do, but they were very different.  Shiva was extremely intelligent but had no ability to conform to rules.  School wasn't something he was interested in.  Marion was the super-striver who did everything the right way, determined to make his way in the world and make his family proud. Both boys end up with medical careers.  Marion becomes a trauma surgeon while Shiva, without a medical degree, becomes a world-renowned expert in a woman's surgery method to cure fistulas.

The boys' intense childhood bond is severed when Marion discovers a betrayal by Shiva that he cannot forgive or forget.  Due to the political situation in their homeland, Marion immigrates to America.  Years later, he discovers and is reunited with his biological father.  A medical crisis brings both branches of the family, biological and adopted together to forge new relationships and learn what they all mean to each other.

Verghese has written a sprawling, extremely satisfying novel.  The reader learns of the Ethiopian culture, as well as the medical culture of surgeons and the challenges they face.  This is hardly surprising as Verghese is a doctor as well as a novelist.  Readers will not soon forget the various faces of love that are portrayed in the novel, and will remember the characters long after they finish the book.  This book is recommended for all readers interested in an engrossing novel that will entrance and entertain.

Cairo Modern by Naguib Mahfouz

In Cairo Modern, Naguib Mahfouz follows the lives of a group of friends at the university in 1930's Egypt.  Some are from prominent families, some are brilliant, some are handsome, some are none of these things.  The book focuses on the life of Mahgub Abd al-Da'im, a desperately poor student determined to make his way in life.

After much privation, Mahgub manages to get his degree, but much to his dismay, any jobs are given out only on a patronage basis.  Mahgub has no one to serve as his patron.  Desparately he contacts anyone he knows even slightly, hoping to find a job that will allow him to escape the poverty he has known his whole life.  Finally, he is offered a job, but it comes with a price.  He is offered a job by an influential rich man who needs someone to marry his mistress.  Mahgub swallows his pride and marries the woman.

This humiliating situation leads to his first job; a job where he receives respect and more money than he has ever had in his possession.  The price he pays, a sundering of his ideals and cutting ties with his college friends, is one he regards as a viable solution.  In fact, he determines that he will not be tied down by any ideals, not friendship or family ties or any kind of morality.  The book follows the outcome of Mahgub's decision as it plays out in his life.  After initial success, he is totally defeated when he is exposed as what he is, someone who will do anything and betray anyone.

Mahfouz received the Nobel Prize in 1988, and spent his prolific writing career portraying Egyptian life in all its aspects.  Cairo Modern is an analogy for what happens to his beloved country as it veers from it's principles prior to World War II.  This book is recommended for literature lovers, and those interested in the literature of other cultures. 

The Language Of Trees by Ilie Ruby

The small town of Canandaigua has a hold on its citizens.  Some have grown up and moved away, but find themselves drawn back to their childhood haunts.  Others have lived their entire lives in this small community, centered around a lake and the trees and animals and Indian heritage that is evident everywhere.

There are also secrets.  More than a decade ago, a tragedy changed the lives of several families.  Three children, two sisters and a brother, fled the wrath of their alcoholic father and took a canoe out on the lake at night.  When a storm whipped up, the canoe capsized and the young brother, Luke, disappeared and drowned.  That death had many consequences.  It broke the marriage of his parents.  One sister< Maya, had to be hospitalized with a mental breakdown, while the other, Melanie,  became a drug addict.  Now Melanie has defeated her addiction and has a good relationship and a baby she loves.  But she has gone missing....

Echo comes back to town to deal with the illness and old age of Joseph, the town's grocer and holder of many secrets.  He took Echo in when she was orphaned and provided her with love and security.  Grant has also returned to town to try to reconcile his past.  He is fleeing a broken marriage, and trying to determine why his father was so distant from him as a child.  When he and Echo see each other, they are drawn to rekindle the past where they were each other's first love.

Ilie Ruby has created a wonderous place, a land that seems shrouded in fog and secrets that the reader must push their way through to discover the secrets that bind these individuals to this place.  This is a debut novel and it's haunting voice will linger in readers' minds long after they close the book.  This book is recommended for readers who are interested in discovering the items that make people the way they are. 

GIVEAWAY!!!!! ADMISSION BY JEAN HANFF KORELITZ

"Admissions. Admission. Aren't there two sides to the word? And two opposing sides...It's what we let in, but it's also what we let out."

For years, 38-year-old Portia Nathan has avoided the past, hiding behind her busy (and sometimes punishing) career as a Princeton University admissions officer and her dependable domestic life. Her reluctance to confront the truth is suddenly overwhelmed by the resurfacing of a life-altering decision, and Portia is faced with an extraordinary test. Just as thousands of the nation's brightest students await her decision regarding their academic admission, so too must Portia decide whether to make her own ultimate admission.

Admission is at once a fascinating look at the complex college admissions process and an emotional examination of what happens when the secrets of the past return and shake a woman's life to its core.


GIVEAWAY RULES



YOU MUST, MUST, MUST LEAVE AN EMAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR COMMENT. COMMENTS WITHOUT EMAIL ADDRESSES WON'T BE ENTERED.

1. The giveaway starts Sunday, August 1 and ends on Friday, 13th at midnight.

2. There will be three winners, chosen by random number generation.

3. Winners must have street addresses (no P.O. Boxes) in either the United States or Canada.

4. For one entry, leave a comment (with your email!). You will get an extra entry for any/all of the following; being or becoming a follower, blogging to this giveaway or tweeting about it. If you blog or tweet, please include the link.

5. Winners will be emailed and must respond within three days in order to claim their prize. After three days, another winner will be chosen and notified.

The Murderer's Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers

In The Murderer's Daughters, Randy Susan Meyers outlines how a domestic abuse crime affects not only the participants, but how the event causes ripple effects throughout the entire social structure around them.  Lulu is ten and her baby sister, Merry, is five when their father comes to their apartment, fights with their mother and kills her.  While Lulu runs for help, the father tries to kill both Merry and himself, failing at both.

The girl's father is imprisoned, but the girls are also.  Their lives change immediately and for all time with the thrust of that knife.  There are few relatives; elderly grandmothers on both sides and an aunt and uncle.  The grandmothers are not able to care for the girls, and the aunt convinces her husband that they cannot take the girls in.  Lulu and Merry are sent to an orphanage.  It is a bleak and terrifying place.  After several years, they are fostered out and remain with this family until they are grown.

Lulu has survivor's guilt and stuffs her feelings down, down, down until they cannot be uncovered.  She concentrates on becoming the perfect child, making excellent grades and becoming a doctor.  She feels that she must protect everyone, and attempts to control everything in her environment. 

Merry is left with questions about why her father would do such a horrible thing, and why he tried to kill her also.  Far from stuffing her feelings down, she is consumed by them, and moves from man to man, always afraid to commit to anyone or anything.  She doesn't forgive her father, but cannot break the connection and visits him in prison over the years.

Randy Susan Meyers has done an excellent job of describing the aftermath and fallout in families from violence.  She expertly outlines the different relationships the girls have, and how this one event controls how they handle every other event in their lives.  While each copes in a different manner, both are less than whole, always attempting to determine why this happened and what it means.  This book is recommended especially for readers with family tragedies.  It will help them come to terms with what has happened to their families and how to move on from disaster. 

Taroko Gorge by Jacob Ritari

A Japanese middle school has taken the entire class on a field trip to Taiwan as they graduate to high schools.  Since Japan's system for high schools is based on achievement tests, the students who have gone to school together for years will be separated in the future.  There are friendships and rivalries, but no one can really imagine how it will be when they don't see each other each day.  Their teacher, Mr. Tanaka, is the chaperone on this trip to Taiwan.

The children visit a famous temple, then break into groups to walk back to the park, which is built around the natural beauty of Taroko Gorge.  Everyone comes back except for three girls.  No one has seen them leave; but they have disappeared and can't be found anywhere.  What could have happened?  As time goes by, the police are called in.  An older detective and his young relative come.  He seems nonchalent about the disappearance, and says nothing can be done until morning when there is light.

There are other visitors to the park that day.  Peter Neils is a journalist who has roamed the world.  He tries to help with the search and to calm the children.  His cameraman, Josh Pickett, is a young man who can't seem to handle the pressure and becomes drunk and useless in the search.

The students quickly form alliances.  Although they have been good friends, it doesn't take long for accusations to be hurled and blame to be attached.  The event brings some students together while forcing others apart.  Regardless, this is an event that will shape the student's lives going forward.

Jacob Ritari uses his knowledge of Buddhism and Japan to set the book in a realistic setting.  Although he grew up in the United States, he studied Japanese language and literature at Japan's Sophia University.  This book is recommended for readers who are interested in how quickly a situation requires a moral choice, and how different individuals make that choice. 

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

In the late 1920's, Czech honeymooners Viktor and Liesel Landauer consider themselves part of the new, vibrant European philosophy of liberal thought focused on the arts and benignly agnostic.  They meet an architect starting his career in Vienna who exemplifies the new thought and hire him to build them a house created from the minimalist school where the heavy designs of the past are out.  Instead, they want a house with open areas, minimal furniture and clear visions both inside and out.  Spare in design, the house has living quarters upstairs and the lower floor is one vast glassed room that overlooks the city.  Young, wealthy and valued patrons of the arts, the Laundauers seem to have it all.

But gilded perfect lives rarely stay that way.  There are strains on the marriage as the years pass. Children arrive and their love moves to a settled relationship and each starts to venture outside the marriage for friendship and romance.  As the years pass and move inevitably towards the mid-1940's, all of Europe changes with the advent of the Nazi Party and Hitler's unstoppable drive to rule all that he sees.  Viktor is Jewish.  He is not observant, but that makes no difference.  Viktor clearly sees what is coming.  He manages to convince Liesel that they must leave, and with their children, nanny and her child who has been raised with their children, they move to Switzerland.  They learn what is going on from friends and family that remain behind.  All that they treasured is lost.  Many of their friends are caught up in the Nazi horrors and their glorious house built to celebrate a new age is now a "research station" where people are measured in an attempt to find the markers that separate Jew from non-Jew.

The Glass Room has a 2009 finalist for the Man Booker Prize.  In it, Mawer leads the reader through the horror of what man can do to man without clubbing them over the head with unceasing details.  He also shows how men and women hurt each other while trying to carve out a place of safety and love for themselves.  The book not only covers the years of World War II, but the Communist era that followed in this area.  It is highly recommended for all readers and is a book I'll remember for a long time. 

AUDIO GIVEAWAY!!!! THE ART OF CHOOSING BY SHEENA IYENGAR

In an era of ever-expanding choices, HOW WE CHOOSE addresses the simple-yet-mystifying question : How do we know what we want?
The answers are strange, impressive, and profound. Sheena Iyengar, a Columbia University professor whose work on choice is widely recognized and cited by companies like AOL and Citigroup, looks into the heart of what we desire-- and what we think we desire-- to show how tangential factors enter into (and run roughshod) over our decisions.

GIVEAWAY RULES


YOU MUST, MUST, MUST LEAVE AN EMAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR COMMENT. COMMENTS WITHOUT EMAIL ADDRESSES WON'T BE ENTERED.

1. The giveaway starts Sunday, July 17th and ends on Friday, July 3oth at midnight.
2. There will be three winners, chosen by random number generation.
3. Winners must have street addresses (no P.O. Boxes) in either the United States or Canada.
4. For one entry, leave a comment (with your email!). You will get an extra entry for any/all of the following; being or becoming a follower, blogging to this giveaway or tweeting about it. If you blog or tweet, please include the link.
5. Winners will be emailed and must respond within three days in order to claim their prize. After three days, another winner will be chosen and notified.