The Sunday Salon with Books Coming Your Way This Summer… Literally!

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's that day of the week where we enjoy talking to other like minded readers about what books have come our way, or what's going on in the publishing world or whatever else we fancy. So grab a cup of joe, find a comfy chair and relax! Let's talk books!

This week we are back to the business of great books! The reading challenges have started, books have been opened, but now let's look to the future… What books are you going to be wanting to read this summer?! I've read about some great books coming our way starting in May, and want to share them today! I've included the blurbs from the publishers, to see what you think. Here's what caught my eye…


The Girls from Corona del Mar by Rufu Thorpe… A fiercely beautiful debut blazing with emotion: a major first novel about friendships made in youth and how these bonds, challenged by loss, illness, parenthood, and distance, either break or sustain.

Mia and Lorrie Ann are lifelong friends: hard-hearted Mia and untouchably beautiful, kind Lorrie Ann. While Mia struggles with a mother who drinks, a pregnancy at fifteen, and younger brothers she loves but can't quite be good to, Lorrie Ann is luminous, surrounded by her close-knit family, immune to the mistakes that mar her best friend's life. Until a sudden loss catapults Lorrie Ann into tragedy: things fall apart, and then fall apart further-and there is nothing Mia can do to help. And as good, kind, brave Lorrie Ann stops being so good, Mia begins to question just who this woman is and what that question means about them both. A staggeringly arresting, honest novel of love, motherhood, loyalty, and the myth of the perfect friendship that moves us to ask ourselves just how well we know those we love, what we owe our children, and who we are without our friends

I love stories that revolve around longtime friendships. This sounds like it will be a great story of female bonding. I like that the girls are friends despite their lives being totally opposite from one another, and I think that will make for some interesting developments in the plot.  I also think this is going to be a great book club selection once it gets out! I actually have a eGalley of this on my Nook and I am enjoying the writing so far. Published my Random House& Knopf, you'll have to wait until July 8th, 2014 to find this at your local bookstore, but make sure you write it down now to remember it!

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A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman… In this bestselling and delightfully quirky debut novel from Sweden, a grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations. A feel-good story in the spirit of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Fredrik Backman’s novel about the angry old man next door is a thoughtful and charming exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others. 

I love quirky, and this sounds like a fun light read. Even though Fredrik Backman is from Sweden, this story sounds very British to me, with a good dose of wry humor. Published by Atria Books, this will arrive in bookstores July 15th, 2014

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The Untold by Courtney Collins… With shades of Water for Elephants and True Grit, a stunning debut novel set in the Australian outback about a female horse thief, her bid for freedom, and the two men trying to capture her.

It is 1921. In a mountain-locked valley, Jessie is on the run.

Born wild and brave, by twenty-six she has already lived life as a circus rider, horse and cattle rustler, and convict. But on this fateful night she is just a woman wanting to survive though there is barely any life left in her. Two men crash through the bushland, desperate to claim the reward on her head: one her lover, the other the law. But as it has always been for Jessie, it is death, not a man, who is her closest pursuer and companion. And while all odds are stacked against her, there is one who will never give up on her—her own child, who awaits her.

Another great sounding book! How could I resist wanting to read this when it mentions similarities with two of my favorite books - Water for Elephants and True Grit! I also liked the fact that it was a female protagonist that had experienced life in some unique ways for a woman (circus rider, cattle rustler) and I think that the Australian Outback will make for a wonderful setting. Published by Putnam Hardcover and coming to a bookstore near you May 29th, 2014.

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The Bees by Laline Paull… The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture-where only the Queen may breed and any deformity means death-in which a devout young worker bee finds herself in possession of a deadly secret, and becomes a hunted criminal whose decisions will mean life and death for her entire hive

Born into the lowest class of her rigid, hierarchical society, Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, an Untouchable fit only to clean and remove the bodies of the dead from her orchard hive. As part of the collective, she is taught to Accept, Obey, Serve-work and sacrifice are the highest virtues, and worship of her beloved Queen the only religion. Her society is governed by the priestess class, questions are forbidden, and all thoughts belong to the Hive Mind.

But Flora is not like other bees-a difference that holds profound consequences. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw but her courage and strength are an asset. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect pollen. She also finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous.

But when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all-daring to challenge the Queen's fertility-enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the strict social hierarchy; to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, her society-and lead her to unthinkable deeds... The Bees is the story of a strong-willed heroine who, in the face of an increasingly desperate struggle for survival, changes her destiny and her world.

If you enjoy Dystopian fiction, this sounds like it's going to be right up your alley! When I read about this book from Ecco, I thought it sounded so unique. I'm interested in cracking the spine on this, and seeing how she pulls this off. If the author's writing is compelling, this should be good. Coming to your favorite bookstore May 6th, 2014.

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Grab These eBook Bargains Now…  Looking for something to read now? How about a great bargain? I'm not sure how long these will last, but I've had my eye on all these books and now's the time to grab them. All are under $3.00, but before you purchase make sure you check that the price hasn't gone up first.

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield… ONE MOMENT IN TIME CAN HAUNT YOU FOREVER...Caught up in a moment of boyhood competition, William Bellman recklessly aims his slingshot at a rook resting on a branch, killing the bird instantly. It is a small but cruel act, and is soon forgotten. By the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, William seems to have put the whole incident behind him. It was as if he never killed the thing at all. But rooks don’t forget . . .Years later, when a stranger mysteriously enters William’s life, his fortunes begin to turn—and the terrible and unforeseen consequences of his past indiscretion take root. In a desperate bid to save the only precious thing he has left, he enters into a rather strange bargain, with an even stranger partner. Together, they found a decidedly macabre business… And Bellman & Black is born. Diane Setterfield wrote The Thirteenth Tale, another great read!  Kindle Edition for Bellman & Black is $1.99!

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion… THE ART OF LOVE IS NEVER A SCIENCE...MEET DON TILLMAN, a brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. And so, in the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.

Rosie Jarman is all these things. She also is strangely beguiling, fiery, and intelligent. And while Don quickly disqualifies her as a candidate for the Wife Project, as a DNA expert Don is particularly suited to help Rosie on her own quest: identifying her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on the Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you. Kindle Edition is $1.99, so is Nook Book!

This House is Haunted by John Boyne… 1867. Eliza Caine arrives in Norfolk to take up her position as governess at Gaudlin Hall on a dark and chilling night. As she makes her way across the station platform, a pair of invisible hands push her from behind into the path of an approaching train. She is only saved by the vigilance of a passing doctor.

When she finally arrives, shaken, at the hall she is greeted by the two children in her care, Isabella and Eustace. There are no parents, no adults at all, and no one to represent her mysterious employer. The children offer no explanation. Later that night in her room, a second terrifying experience further reinforces the sense that something is very wrong. From the moment she rises the following morning, her every step seems dogged by a malign presence which lives within Gaudlin’s walls. Eliza realises that if she and the children are to survive its violent attentions, she must first uncover the hall’s long-buried secrets and confront the demons of its past. Kindle Edition &  Nook Book are both $2.99 right now.

Weekly Recap…

*Monday, I reviewed Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, her true life & honest account of her survival during the 2004 Tsunami in Sri Lanka. What makes this even more compelling is her heartfelt story of surviving, but losing her entire family. Click on the title to read the review. 

*Wednesday, I reviewed Tenth of December by George Saunders. It's a collection of short stories filled with the ironies of everyday life, some of which are set in a futuristic world, but all have his well known wry sense of humor and satire. Not my usual kind of reading, but I did start to enjoy them. Read my review and my thoughts by clicking on the link above.

*Friday, I reviewed Saga Vol. 1, the Romeo & Juliet space opera by Image Comics. Yes, it's a graphic novel, and it won a ton of best of mentions at the end of 2013. And after reading the first volume, I know why. Great story! This is going to be a great series, so start now while there are only 3 volumes out. Read my review by clicking on the link.

*Saturday, I posted about the Release Party for Cloaked in Danger by Jeannie Ruesche… It's a party on Facebook that will have giveaways, prizes, and all sorts of fun things going on. Read all about it with the Release Party Link.

And in the "Book Blogging" world I came across an interesting opinion piece on BookRiot by Peter Damien on The Decline and Fall of the Book Reviewing Empire. It's an interesting piece on book reviewing and how the "professional" reviewer is falling by the wayside in lieu of book bloggers and friends exchanging recommendations via the internet. Let me know what you think?

Next week… a review for a book of poetry by Mary Oliver that any dog lover would like! And a review for Nora Roberts' newest historical romance, Dark Witch!

Thank you for stopping by! As always, I'd love you to share what you're reading and what books you found in your travels! So leave a comment and tell me what I need to read!

Happy reading… Suzanne

The Sunday Salon and Books with Buzz

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's the time of the week we talk about all things bookish. So, grab a cup of Java, pull up a chair and relax!

It's been a crazy week as I try to plan for our vacation- a road trip down South that will end up in Savannah, Ga! I have always wanted to visit Savannah ever since reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, who described it as a "hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks", and whose book was absolutely wonderful. Because of our "road trip', I was thinking of making this Sunday Salon all about "road trip" books - friends hopping in a car and heading out to parts unknown, or books about travel. But then as I started to try and figure out what books I'm going to bring with me ( and we always bring something to read, don't we?!) I thought "let's just talk about some great books that have poked their spines up for me to find in my week of travels." So no themes this week, just books that sound great and are going in my wish list...

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer...

“They say there are many worlds,” she explains. “All around our own, packed tight as the cells of your heart. Each with its own logic, its own physics, moons, and stars. … And in those other worlds, the places you love are there, the people you love are there. . . . So what if you found the door? And what if you had the key? Because everyone knows this: That the impossible happens once to each of us.”   

From the publisher... 1985. After the death of her beloved twin brother, Felix, and the break up with her long-time lover, Nathan, Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment to alleviate her suffocating depression. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta finds herself transported to the lives she might have had if she'd been born in a different era.

Have you ever thought to yourself, "what if I was born 100 years ago, what would my life be?"What if I could go back just a little bit and meet my true love in a different era?" I LOVE time travel novels! I loved The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's always fascinating to see the "what if's". The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells has gotten a lot of great reviews, "Magically atmospheric, achingly romantic", and it looks to have the potential to sweep you off your feet in that romantic time travel kind of way. In the book, Greta is transported back in time, but with her same family and surrounding people. She's aware of the shift, but can she really enjoy herself? Just published this week by Ecco, an imprint of Harper Collins, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells is available right now from your local bookstore (and it's on my wish list!)!

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Readl Magic by Emily Croy Barker... Nora Fischer’s dissertation is stalled and her boyfriend is about to marry another woman.  During a miserable weekend at a friend’s wedding, Nora wanders off and walks through a portal into a different world where she’s transformed from a drab grad student into a stunning beauty.  Before long, she has a set of glamorous new friends and her romance with gorgeous, masterful Raclin is heating up. It’s almost too good to be true.

Then the elegant veneer shatters. Nora’s new fantasy world turns darker, a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. Making it here will take skills Nora never learned in graduate school.

This book sounds like a fun romp! I like the elements of magic and the fairy tale gone wrong scenario. I also would like to see how the author merges the modern day with the fantasy world. This is coming to your local bookstore August 1st and is published by Penguin.

 We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler... Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and our narrator, Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I spent the first eighteen years of my life defined by this one fact: that I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she tells us. “It’s never going to be the first thing I share with someone. I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion, I’d scarcely known a moment alone. She was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half, and I loved her as a sister.”

Just reading the description tugged at my heart. Don't you just want to know what happened to Fern?! Reading just a small sample of this book, the story slowly draws you in and I enjoyed the writing. Of course Karen Joy Fowler is the author of the wildly popular The Jane Austen Book Club, which swept through book clubs and put Jane Austen on the map with new readers.

What do you think of the title? I passed this by the first time I saw the title, because I thought it was a bit wordy and it didn't really compel me to open the book. I think that would be a great post one of these days - good books, not so good titles. Of course, I'm sure the title has to do with the loss of Fern, but on first sight... Anyway, We are Completely Besides Ourselves is available from your local bookstore and is published by Marian Wood Books/Putnam a division of Penguin.

So, now I'm going to stop looking at the books I am putting on my wish list and am going to start packing away the books I'm taking. I'm also packing away my Nook HD, which has a lot of books already loaded in my TBR pile. We'll have to talk about eReaders again too. It's been a while and there are even more choices including the advent of Tablets, which were not part of the discussion last time we talked digital reading. For Christmas, my hubby gave me a Nook HD, which I was pining for. I debated a long time on the Kindle Fire and the Nook HD. Finally deciding on the Nook HD because of it's size (it's definitely lighter and way thinner) and resolution. Although with Barnes & Noble hooking up with Google, there is an App that allows me to read my zillions of Kindle books now too! Best of both worlds... BUT if you are thinking of getting the Kindle Fire HD, it is on SALE on Amazon for $169 with adds for "a limited time'!

Now that I've shared what new books I found, what are you reading? What are you waiting for to be released?! I'd love to hear all about it! You can share it right here in your comment!!!

Have a great week... Suzanne

The Sunday Salon... Summer Reading!

It's Sunday! Time to relax and take it easy! Open a good book and have a cup of Joe! Sometimes life gets in the way of reading & blogging, and my time has been spent in the throws of that the last few weeks. Now though, as things have settled down, I'm back to say hello and to say I've missed you! But books are still published and authors still havea lot to say, and today I'd like to share some of the books I've discovered that have a lot of Buzz! Summer has come to Connecticut with a bang and there are some wonderful summer reads coming our way! Here's some Books with Buzz...

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan... For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano at night. Their beachfront property, won on a barroom bet after the war, sits on three acres of sand and pine nestled between stretches of rocky coast, with one tree bearing the initials “A.H.” At the cottage, built by Kelleher hands, cocktail hour follows morning mass, nosy grandchildren snoop in drawers, and decades-old grudges simmer beneath the surface. As three generations of Kelleher women descend on the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.

This book is splashed all over the web, in emails I've received and has gotten great pre-pub reviews. And I for one am excited about this book! I love generational stories and these 3 women sound rich & complex and should make for a wonderful luxurious summer read. This will be released Tuesday, June 14th!

Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson... Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say: Henderson debuts with a coming-of-age story set in the 1980s that departs from the genre's familiar tropes to find a panoramic view of how the imperfect escape from our parents' mistakes makes (equally imperfect) adults of us. Jude Keffy-Horn and Teddy McNicholas are drug-addled adolescents stuck in suburban Vermont and dreaming of an escape to New York City. But after Teddy dies of an overdose, Jude makes good on their dream and forms a de facto family with Teddy's straight-edge brother, Johnny; Jude's estranged pot-farmer father, Lester; and the troubled Eliza Urbanski, who may be carrying Teddy's child. What results is an odyssey encompassing the age of CBGB, Hare Krishnas, zines, and the emergence of AIDS. Henderson is careful, amid all this youthy nostalgia, not to sideline the adults, who look upon the changing fashions with varying levels of engagement.

Coming-of-Age stories are always popular, and this has gotten a lot of positive buzz. What may be different with this story is that it takes place in a more contemporary era that is not the norm with these kinds of tales. That may make this even a better bet because we all can relate to the landscape of this portrait. This book was recently released (June 7th) and is available fromyour favorite bookseller!

Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad... Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? opens with the line: "The person you love is 72.8% water, and it hasn’t rained for weeks." From there, Brage Award–winning author and playwright Johan Harstad’s debut—previously published to great success in eleven countries and now making its first English-language appearance—tells the story of Mattias, a thirty-something gardener living in Stavanger, Norway, whose idol is Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon: the man who was willing to stand in Neil Armstrong’s shadow in order to work, diligently and humbly, for the success of the Apollo 11 mission. Following a series of personal and professional disasters, Mattias finds himself lying on a rain-soaked road in the desolate, treeless Faroe Islands, population only a few thousand, a wad of bills in his pocket and no memory of how he had come to be there—that’s when a truck approaches him, driven by a troubled, fantastic man with an offer that will shortly change Mattias’s life. And so, surrounded by a vivid and memorable cast of characters—aspiring pop musicians, Caribbean-obsessed psychologists, death-haunted photographers, girls who dream of anonymous men falling in love with them on bus trips, and even Buzz Aldrin himself—launches Buzz Aldrin, What Happened To You In All The Confusion?, the epic story of Mattias’s pop-saturated odyssey through the world of unconventional psychiatry, souvenir sheep-making, the Cardigans, and space: the space between himself and other people, a journey maybe as remote and personally dangerous as the trip to the moon itself

This book sounds like fun! With a group of quirky characters and a road trip, how can you go wrong? Add the fact that this has been published to great accolades in eleven countries doesn't hurt. Kirkus Reviews calls it, "A modern saga of rocketships, ice floes and dreams of the Caribbean, and great fun to read." And I for one am looking forward to a fun romp with this one! Though we had to wait almost 6 years for Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion by Johan Harstad, it's now available from your favorite bookseller!

So what have you been reading lately?! Does your reading change like the seasons? Do you slow down and read more fun in the summer? I'd love to hear what summer reading means to you!

Happy Reading... Suzanne