ARTICLE SHARING: "10 Books That Should Be Challenged Instead of '50 Shades of Grey'"

Flavorwire had (what I found to be) an amusing article on "10 Books That Should Be Challenged Instead of '50 Shades of Grey'". Check it out!

ARTICLE SHARING:"Extremely Silly Photos of Extremely Serious Writers"

Flavorwire posted a charming article about "Extremely Silly Photos of Extremely Serious Writers". A couple of my favorites:

Susan Sontag in a bear suit

Hemingway kicking a beer can

Hunter S. Thompson with John Cusack and Johnny Depp and a blow-up doll.

Check it out!

Introducing...The Passage by Justin Cronin

Introducing books through their first chapter or so...

Before she became the Girl from Nowhere-- the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years-- she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy. Amy Harper Bellafonte.

-- The Passage by Justin Cronin

Mailbox Monday (05-07-12 edition)

 Image licensed from bigstockphoto.com

Copyright stands

Mailbox Monday is now hosted monthly by a different blog. Here is the official blog of Mailbox Monday.  Here's what I've received over the last few weeks:

Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet by Heather Poole 
Won from 2 Kids and Tired Books


"Cruising Attitude" is a charming, funny insider's look at the life of a flight attendant, from coping with crazy passengers to finding love at 35,000 feet.

The Names of Things by John Colman Wood
Won e-book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers


The anthropologist’s wife, an artist, didn’t want to follow her husband to the remote desert of northeast Africa to live with camel-herding nomads. But wanting to be with him, she endured the trip, only to fall desperately ill years later with a disease that leaves her husband with more questions than answers.

When the anthropologist discovers a deception that shatters his grief and guilt, he begins to reevaluate his love for his wife as well as his friendship with one of the nomads he studied. He returns to Africa to make sense of what happened, traveling into the far reaches of the Chalbi Desert, where he must sift through the layers of his memories and reconcile them with what he now knows.

Set in a windswept wilderness menaced by hyenas and lions, The Names of Things weaves together the stories of an anthropologist’s journey into the desert, his firsthand accounts of the nomads' death rituals, and his struggle to find the names of things for which no words exist.

The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay
Received through TLC Book Tours

Following in the footsteps of The Birth House, her powerful debut novel, The Virgin Cure secures Ami McKay's place as one of our most beguiling storytellers. (Not that it has to… that is pretty much taken care of!)

"I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart." So begins The Virgin Cure, a novel set in the tenements of lower Manhattan in the year 1871. As a young child, Moth's father smiled, tipped his hat and walked away from his wife and daughter forever, and Moth has never stopped imagining that one day they may be reunited – despite knowing in her heart what he chose over them. Her hard mother is barely making a living with her fortune-telling, sometimes for well-heeled clients, yet Moth is all too aware of how she really pays the rent.

Life would be so much better, Moth knows, if fortune had gone the other way - if only she'd had the luxury of a good family and some station in life. The young Moth spends her days wandering the streets of her own and better neighbourhoods, imagining what days are like for the wealthy women whose grand yet forbidding gardens she slips through when no one's looking. Yet every night Moth must return to the disease- and grief-ridden tenements she calls home.

The summer Moth turns twelve, her mother puts a halt to her explorations by selling her boots to a local vendor, convinced that Moth was planning to run away. Wanting to make the most of her every asset, she also sells Moth to a wealthy woman as a servant, with no intention of ever seeing her again.

These betrayals lead Moth to the wild, murky world of the Bowery, filled with house-thieves, pickpockets, beggars, sideshow freaks and prostitutes, but also a locale frequented by New York's social elite. Their patronage supports the shadowy undersphere, where businesses can flourish if they truly understand the importance of wealth and social standing - and of keeping secrets. In that world Moth meets Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel simply known as an "infant school." There Moth finds the orderly solace she has always wanted, and begins to imagine herself embarking upon a new path.

Yet salvation does not come without its price: Miss Everett caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for companions who are "willing and clean," and the most desirable of them all are young virgins like Moth. That's not the worst of the situation, though. In a time and place where mysterious illnesses ravage those who haven't been cautious, no matter their social station, diseased men yearn for a "virgin cure" - thinking that deflowering a "fresh maid" can heal the incurable and tainted.

Through the friendship of Dr. Sadie, a female physician who works to help young women like her, Moth learns to question and observe the world around her. Moth's new friends are falling prey to fates both expected and forced upon them, yet she knows the law will not protect her, and that polite society ignores her. Still she dreams of answering to no one but herself. There's a high price for such independence, though, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street.

REVIEW: Edge of Light by Cynthia Justlin

Synopsis

Taken prisoner by a ruthless group of anarchists deep in the Cambodian jungle, anthropologist Jocelyn Hewitt is isolated in a dark prison cell. Without chance of rescue. Or hope. Until the man in the next cell reaches out to let her know she’s not as alone as she thinks.

CIA agent Oliver Shaw has been held prisoner for over two years. Forced to witness the brutal torture and slow murder of his entire team, his spirit is not just broken, it’s crushed. He no longer believes in hope. Until he hears Jocelyn through the wall, and suddenly feels like a glimpse of light is trying to reach in…

Jocelyn’s heart aches for the tortured man whose presence and voice give her the courage to risk their escape. But first she’ll have to remind Oliver who he once was, what he once loved, and bring him back to life. Only then will they have a chance for freedom—and the kind of love neither ever thought possible.

ebook, 348 pages
Expected publication: May 14th 2012 by Carina Press
ISBN13  9781426893766

About the Author
from GoodReads

Cynthia is a former Romance Writers of America Golden Heart® Finalist in Romantic Suspense. She started out writing contemporary romance, but when all her plots began to turn dastardly, she decided to stop fighting the urge to throw explosions, dead bodies, and evil villains into her books.

With her B.S. in the chemical sciences and her love of the periodic table (yes, she’s a geek and proud of it!) she finally found the perfect potent mix of love and danger to put into her stories.


My Thoughts

You're still alive.

Town/Location:

Most of this story takes place in Cambodia.

Jocelyn is in Cambodia, trying to find out the real story behind what happened to her father, and to hopefully bring her father's remains back with her. While in Cambodia, she and her team are unexpectedly attacked, and Jocelyn is taken hostage. She finds herself in a stark prison cell, frightened and confused, but realizes that she isn't alone, as someone resides in the cell next to her.

Oliver has been held captive for two years, regularly beaten and tortured, and he is half the man he once was. But the voice of the woman in the cell next to him stirs something in him, and the man he used to be lies just beneath the surface, waiting for the opportunity to rise again.

This is one of those strange books that is hard to classify. It was an "easy" read-- after all, it is a modern-day romance novel. However it is intermingled with brutality and violence in a way that can be a little unsettling. 

Additionally while I know that there is a certain degree of "suspension of disbelief" needed for most fictional stories, I had to really extend myself with the romantic plot line in this book. I think I am too rational and realistic to be able to lose myself in romance anymore. My mind is always thinking, "Oh, come on! In real life, this could never work out! Keep your heads on straight! You can't build a relationship on such a traumatic experience! Don't make any foolish commitments without years of therapy!"

My final word: If you can handle the brutality, and the uncomfortable mixing of violence and romance, go ahead and give this one a go. It's a fast read, and an interesting take on everyday romance.

My rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosure:

I received a copy of this ebook to review through Netgalley, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. The ebook I received was an ARC, and could differ slightly from the actual release book.