Jeffrey Tambor discusses how he landed the role of George Bluth, Sr. on ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, and what he remembers from the show.
Jeffrey Tambor: Landing my role on Arrested Development
June 3, 2017
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Posted by Stacy Alesi
RABBIT CAKE by Annie Hartnett
June 2, 2017
If you like charming, quirky books – and I love them – then you need to read Rabbit Cake. It got some starred reviews, was a “People Magazine Book of the Week,” and it lived up to all the hype.
Elvis Babbitt is the twelve year old girl at the heart of this book. Her mother, a scientist and professor, was a sleepwalker who accidentally drowned one night. Elvis’s father is dealing with his grief by wearing his wife’s robe and her lipstick. Elvis’s older sister Lizzie, always a rebellious, problematic teen, becomes even worse. Lizzie is also a sleepwalker and after her mother’s death, she becomes a sleep eater as well.
Elvis wants to continue her mother’s work, writing a book on the sleeping habits of animals. She is a very bright, very precocious child, to say the least, and for much of the book seems more mature than most of the adults in her life. The counselor at school tells Elvis that grief takes about 18 months to run its course, and Elvis takes her at her word and creates a grief chart to help her cope.
There are lots of quirky goings on throughout the story, from the Jesus statue made from beach debris that arrives one day, the bird that imitates the mother’s voice perfectly, to Lizzie’s baking 1000 rabbit cakes to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, and much, much more.
The characters are so well developed I couldn’t help but be drawn into their world and I was sad to leave them at the end of the book. This was a most enjoyable read, esepcially if you like family stories. The quirkiness is sure to appeal to readers who loved Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, and Frederik Backman fans.
6/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™
RABBIT CAKE by Annie Hartnett. Tin House Books (March 7, 2017). ISBN 978-1941040560. 344p.
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Win the June ’17 bookshelf of signed thrillers!
June 1, 2017Welcome to the June bookshelf of signed thrillers! This is a bonanza of exciting new books to win – some favorite authors or find a new author. To enter, go to the Win Books page. Best of luck!
ROBERT LUDLUM’S THE BOURNE INITIATIVE by Eric Van Lustbader: After Russian general Boris Karpov dies and his cyberoperation to steal the U.S. president’s nuclear launch codes proceeds from beyond the grave, Jason Bourne is marked a traitor by the U.S. government when it’s revealed that Karpov trusted Bourne.
DANGEROUS MINDS by Janet Evanovich: A follow-up to Curious Minds pits mismatched partners Riley Moon, a financial analyst; and Emerson Knight, an eccentric billionaire’s son, against a big-league criminal whose activities pose a series of puzzle-like clues. By the best-selling author of the Stephanie Plum novels.
THE CHILD by Fiona Barton: When an infant’s skeleton is discovered in a demolished house, Kate Waters strives to uncover the baby’s identity and unearths links to a decades-old kidnapping, but she is torn between helping the police and revealing her sources.
MURDER IN SAINT-GERMAIN by Cara Black: Accosted by a paranoid counterterrorism agent who may be compromised by PTSD, private investigator Aimée Leduc wonders if the Serbian warlord who the agent was tracking may have come to Paris with a blood vendetta, a case that is challenged by Aimée’s wedding, the demands of early motherhood and a series of attacks on other agents.
TRAP THE DEVIL by Ben Coes: When the instigators of an invisible coup assassinate the secretary of state and target the president and vice president as part of a plan to take over the government and launch a full-scale war, Dewey Andreas is dispatched by the CIA to offer additional security only to find himself framed for the murders he would prevent.
INDIGO by Charlaine Harris, et al: In a brilliant collaboration by New York Times and critically acclaimed coauthors Charlaine Harris, Christopher Golden, Kelley Armstrong, Jonathan Maberry, Kat Richardson, Seanan McGuire, Tim Lebbon, Cherie Priest, James Moore, and Mark Morris join forces to bring you a crime-solving novel like you’ve never read before.
LOCKDOWN by Laurie R. King: A school career day that is hosted by a range of presenters is thrown into turmoil by an anonymous enemy with a thirst for revenge in a stand-alone novel of psychological suspense by the best-selling author of the Mary Russell series.
THE SPY ACROSS THE TABLE by Barry Lancet: Book 4 in the Jim Brodie Thriller Series. An antiques dealer tries to investigate who killed two of his friends at a theatre in Washington, D.C., but runs afoul of the head of Homeland Security after the first lady, a mutual friend of one of the slain, gets involved.
ONE OF US IS LYING by Karen M. McManus: When one of five students in detention is found dead, his high-profile classmates—including a brainy intellectual, a popular beauty, a drug dealer on probation and an all-star athlete—are investigated and revealed to be the subjects of the victim’s latest gossip postings.
RED SKY by Chris Goff: This is the pulse-pounding follow-up to Dark Waters in the Raisa Jordan Thriller Series.
YOU’LL NEVER KNOW DEAR by Hallie Ephron: When a one-of-a-kind porcelain doll that went missing the day her sister was abducted decades earlier resurfaces, Lissie uncovers sinister clues about a mysterious individual who would threaten the lives of the women in her family.
UNSUB by Meg Gardiner: A psychological thriller inspired by the unsolved case of the Zodiac Killer follows the efforts of a young detective who resolves to apprehend the serial murderer who destroyed her family and terrorized a city 20 years earlier.
You can win autographed copies of all these books! If you are new to the site, each month I run a contest in conjunction with the International Thriller Writers organization. We put together a list of books from debut authors to bestsellers, so you can win some of your favorites and find some new favorites.
What makes this contest really special is that all of the books (except eBooks) are signed by the author! Books with multiple authors will be signed by at least one of the authors.
Penguin Random House books for giveaway were provided by the publisher. #PRHpartner
Don’t forget, if you subscribe to the newsletter or follow this blog, you get an extra entry into every contest you enter. Check out the Win Books page for more information on all these books and how you to enter this month’s contest.
Thanks for reading, and good luck!
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Posted by Stacy Alesi
Win a signed copy of Pacific Burn by Barry Lancet!
May 31, 2017
With Barry’s permission, I’m recreating his newsletter with the giveaway. This is a terrific series and if you haven’t tried it yet, you definitely should!
Best of luck and enjoy!
On sale June 20, The Spy Across the Table is the much-anticipated fourth installment in Barry Lancet’s award-winning Jim Brodie thriller series.
Sometimes-PI Brodie “is in top form” (Kirkus Reviews) in this latest outing, in which he finds himself called to the White House—by the First Lady herself—after a double-murder occurs at the Kennedy Center. It turns out the First Lady was the college roommate of one of the victims, and she enlists Brodie—off the record—to use his Japanese connections to track down the assassin. Homeland Security head Tom Swelley is furious that the White House is meddling and wants Brodie off the case. Why? For the same reason a master Chinese spy, one of the most dangerous men alive, appears on the scene: the murders were no random act of violence.
Forced into a dangerous game of espionage, Brodie finds himself in the crosshairs of the Chinese, North Korean, and American governments. He flies to Tokyo to attend the second of two funerals where Anna, the daughter of one of the victims, is kidnapped during the ceremony. Immediately, Brodie realizes that the murders were simply bait to draw her out of hiding: Anna is the key architect of a top-secret NSA program that gathers the personal secrets of America’s most influential leaders—secrets so damaging that North Korea and China will stop at nothing to get them, forcing Brodie to face off against the spy across the table.
An edge-of-your-seat thriller and a timely behind-the-scenes look at the complex relationship between China and North Korea, The Spy Across the Table is a riveting action-packed addition to Lancet’s wildly popular and highly acclaimed series.
Barry is giving away five signed copies of the newly released paperback of Pacific Burn. To enter to win, pre-order The Spy Across the Table at any online retailers—or your favorite independent bookstore—and then complete this form. But hurry, contest ends June 11!
Connect with Barry:
Follow Barry on Twitter
Follow Barry on Facebook
Follow Barry on Goodreads
Visit BarryLancet.com
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NEW YORK ACTUALLY by Sarah Morgan
May 30, 2017
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From Manhattan With Love Series, Book 4
My regular readers know that this is one of my favorite series. Originally it was supposed to be a trilogy, but I was so happy to hear there would be more. This one is another terrific entry into the series.
This series was originally about three women, best friends who get downsized from their jobs and form their own company, a sort of concierge service for Manhattanites, called Urban Genie. Each book centered around one of the women, but now their world has expanded. This book is about Molly, who uses the dog walkers recommended by Urban Genie and is friendly with the women, and Daniel, who is friends with one of the women’s brothers. Not as complicated as it sounds, and hardly worth an explanation, but there you have it. Romance series tend to grow by focusing the next story on a peripheral character, so there is always some overlap but I think this series is best read in order.
Molly has emigrated to America from England because of some horrible incident that is hinted at throughout the story, but not exposed until nearly the end. We know it was a relationship gone horribly wrong that also caused her friends and family to abandon her. leaving her gun shy about love, to say the least. Interestingly, Molly is a psychologist who specializes in relationships. In New York, she starts a blog called “Ask a Girl,” using the pseudonym Aggie, and she has a huge following and earns a book deal out of it. That book was a big bestseller and now she is under contract to write another. No one, except the gay couple upstairs, knows that Molly is Aggie or what happened in the UK, and she aims to keep it that way.
Daniel is one of the most successful divorce lawyers in New York. His sisters are the dog walkers, so when he sees Molly running in the park with her dog, he borrows a dog from them to try and catch her interest – and it works. Molly’s dalmation, Valentine, is her best friend and she likes it that way. She has no interest in getting involved with anyone again, not after all the heartache she’s left in her wake. Daniel is also gun shy, working with all those couples who are getting divorced and the bitterness and acrimony that goes along with it. But he’s all about casual sex, and the chemistry between them is so strong that Molly can’t deny it.
They become friends with benefits, for lack of a better description, but there are many stumbling blocks along the way, some of them pretty major. But this wouldn’t be a romance without a happily ever after, and there is. This was a one night (ok, a late night) read for me – I loved it! The next book is Holiday in the Hamptons, which comes out August 29 (or June 15, I’ve seen both dates,) but you can pre-order it now.
5/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™
NEW YORK ACTUALLY by Sarah Morgan. HQN Books (May 30, 2017). ISBN 978-0373804108. 384p.
Kindle
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Author Spotlight: Jennifer Ryan 5/17
May 29, 2017Jennifer Ryan (author of THE CHILBURY LADIES’ CHOIR) | 8 Great Questions – Jennifer Ryan (author of THE CHILBURY LADIES’ CHOIR) answers 8 Great Questions about books, words, and characters.
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THE CHILBURY LADIES’ CHOIR
For readers of Lilac Girls and The Nightingale, The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir unfolds the struggles, affairs, deceptions, and triumphs of a village choir during World War II
As England becomes enmeshed in the early days of World War II and the men are away fighting, the women of Chilbury village forge an uncommon bond. They defy the Vicar’s stuffy edict to close the choir and instead “carry on singing,” resurrecting themselves as the Chilbury Ladies’ Choir. We come to know the home-front struggles of five unforgettable choir members: a timid widow devastated when her only son goes to fight; the older daughter of a local scion drawn to a mysterious artist; her younger sister pining over an impossible crush; a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia hiding a family secret; and a conniving midwife plotting to outrun her seedy past.
An enchanting ensemble story that shuttles from village intrigue to romance to the heartbreaking matters of life and death, Jennifer Ryan’s debut novel thrillingly illuminates the true strength of the women on the home front in a village of indomitable spirit.
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Posted by Stacy Alesi
TREMAINE’S TRUE LOVE by Grace Burrowes
May 26, 2017
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True Gentlemen, Book 1
Not sure how I missed this, but this book was a 2016 RITA Finalist for Historical Romanace and now that I’ve read it, I know why. And look at me, starting a series with book 1! This book is from 2015, and there are two more out already. I found it on a list from Overdrive, the company from which my library (most libraries) gets most of their ebooks. Luckily I found the next two in my library on the shelf (thanks, Barbara!) especially since the ebooks have a waiting list. The fourth book in the series, His Lordship’s True Lady, comes out in June – at least on Kindle. I should be all caught up by then.
Tremaine St. Michael is of mixed heritage, Scottish on his mother’s side and a French comte on his father’s. But mostly he is a man of commerce, always wheeling and dealing and making himself a fortune in the process, mostly in the sheep/wool business. He’s visiting the Haddonfield’s in hopes of buying their rare Merino sheep. But it is the eldest daughter, Nita, who is distracting him from his business.
Nita has decided she’s never going to marry. She inherited her mother’s gift of healing, and much prefers taking care of her neighbors than staying at home. But Tremaine is unlike any of the men she has met before. Their chemistry is interesting to watch ignite.
The usual drama ensues, including a duel which doesn’t come up as often as you would think in these historical romances, so that was a nice touch. I also like that the setting was in the country, not in London like a lot of historical romances. A bit of sex, nothing too graphic, but enough to make it interesting. It was a fun, fast read and I can understand why it was nominated for the RITA award.
5/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™
TREMAINE’S TRUE LOVE by Grace Burrowes. Sourcebooks Casablanca (August 4, 2015) ISBN: 978-1492621027. 416p.
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Author Spotlight: Colson Whitehead 5/17
May 25, 2017Colson Whitehead on his early writing
Author Colson Whitehead (THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD) explains how publishing think pieces at the Village Voice made him a better fiction writer.
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THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, (and an Oprah’s Book Club selection) the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave’s adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
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Posted by Stacy Alesi
SINCE WE FELL by Dennis Lehane
May 24, 2017
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It’s been about two years since the last Lehane book, World Gone By, but it is always worth the wait and this book is no exception.
Since We Fell starts out as a character study of sorts. The first third of the book examines Rachel’s life in an attempt to help the reader understand what comes next. I thought the mystery of the book was put forth here – Rachel doesn’t know who her father is. Her mother always refused to tell her and when her mother finally agreed to tell her when she became of age, her mother died.
Next is the Rachel who is a successful, globe trotting TV journalist. But that career ends abruptly when she has a breakdown on live television during a trip to Haiti. The destruction and despair are palpable, but it is the personal that finally does her in. We don’t learn exactly what happened until later on, but we learn about the life of an agoraphobe.
Rachel is married to a news manager who can’t deal with her failure. Eventually she realizes he was not the perfect husband and marries again. Her second husband, Brian, is the love of her life. He travels quite a bit for work, but always communicates with her. The second third of the book is about their life together, his willingness to be shut away with her and how well he seems to know and understand her.
The last third of the book is the thriller some readers may be expecting. By this point I was beginning to think everything I’d read up to this point was the point, but I was wrong. The tension starts ratcheting up when Rachel ventures out on her own to meet a friend, then thinks she sees her husband going into a building around the corner. Brian is supposed to be on a plane out of the country, and this sparks the inner reporter in Rachel and off she goes.
There are many twists in this crazy roller coaster ride that positively hurtles to the finish line, and the pacing invariably speeds up towards the end. This was a terrific read for both literary readers and thriller readers, something that is not easy to accomplish. Hats off to Lehane, one of our most gifted writers. This is a cinematic read for sure, and I can see another fine film in Lehane’s future.
5/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™
SINCE WE FELL by Dennis Lehane. Ecco (May 9, 2017). ISBN: 978-0062129383. 432p.
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Posted by Stacy Alesi
Authors should be paid for their work!
May 23, 2017I read this very upsetting article in The Guardian –
Cheap books, high price: why Amazon.com’s ‘one-click’ sales can cost authors dear
US sales on the web giant have recently begun defaulting to secondhand merchants, meaning writers receive nothing at all from purchases
It is a hard sell: the idea that cheaper books might be a bad thing. But an adjustment to how Amazon sells books on its site is being attacked by authors’ groups, which claim secondhand copies of new books sold at rock-bottom prices are selling in such high quantities from the retailer that authors are unable to earn a living.
A week ago, buyers on Amazon.com, the US site, began seeing heavily discounted secondhand copies of books sold by third-party sellers being presented as the default buying option, instead of new copies supplied to Amazon by publishers. Using that “buy-in-one-click” button for, say, George Saunders’s novel Lincoln in the Bardo, you’ll get it for a bargain $10.52 – but that’s an “as-new” copy from a secondhand seller, not a new copy sourced by Amazon.com (which will cost you $14.64).
Read the rest here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/may/17/secondhand-book-sales-authors-cheap
I link all my reviews to Amazon because I try and make enough money to pay for my website, and I usually just about break even. But it is upsetting to learn that if you buy a “used” new book from a third party seller, the author doesn’t make a dime. I like cheap books as much as anyone, but authors deserve to get paid. This practice doesn’t seem to affect anyone else – the publisher still makes their money, so why shouldn’t the author?
So if you are going to buy a book on my recommendation, please click through the link I provide – usually in the book cover. Then make sure you are purchasing a NEW copy, if that is what you want, directly from Amazon and not from a second party seller.
Climbing off my soapbox now.
Thanks.
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Posted by Stacy Alesi
Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™ 