Wednesday, October 31, 2018

*Review* Harmony for My Mate by Terri A. Wilson


Genre: Paranormal Romance
Published: October 23, 2018
Pages: 157



How do you choose between two women, when only the love of both will bring you harmony?

Cameron was born a falcon shifter, but when his arrogance prompted a total disregard for safety, he was attacked by a bear shifter. Living with two predatory animals who want control makes it hard to find peace. When he meets the new chef, Eliza, his bear recognizes his mate, but his falcon longs for Skylar, a love from his past. When an opportunity presents itself that will make all the three happy, Eliza’s heart fights against her traditional upbringing, and she retreats into fear and uncertainty. Skylar knows their unique love will work. But first she must break through the walls Cameron and Eliza built, but that won’t be easy when Cam’s heart is split in two and Eliza refuses to believe she deserves happiness. Can three unique hearts turn their back on tradition and forge a new type of bond in order to bring harmony to their lives? 

This is a standalone within a series. It does not need to be read in order. However, there are details that are mentioned in this book that will reference events in previous books. These details do not change the plot of this story.


I was hired to proofread this book. The only aspects of the story that I influenced were the spelling and grammar. If you feel that my connection to this book makes my review untrustworthy, so be it, but this is my honest review.

I have been reading a lot of RH books lately, so I'm pretty well immersed in the non-traditional relationships that can occur, but it was also almost a bit of nice change to see two women to one man for me. The relationship dynamic in this book made a whole lot of sense all things considered though with Cameron's dual nature and all of that.

I found myself cheering the trio on, hoping that they would listen to Skylar, who comes across as something of a hippie dippy, Earth mother type. She's very in tune with her surroundings and seems almost like the type who could see people's auras. And even though she's young, she seems wise beyond her years, and it really fits with her character.

Although this book is part of a series, it really can be read all on it's own. However, that will open you up to some spoilers for the previous book if you choose to read them out of order.

Overall I give Harmony for My Mate 4.287 stars. - Katie 



Terri is a former English teacher and librarian. She taught middle and high school and college. Now she works from home homeschooling her two daughters and living out her dreams via her stories. She began escaping into books a little later than most but was hooked after the first book. It has been her dream to give back to the book world since second grade.
When she’s not writing or reading, she enjoys binging on Netflix and painting. Due to her crunchy lifestyle and free spirit, she considers herself a recycled hippie. Her most important goal is to help others jump and learn to fly.
To find out more about her characters and the lives they live, check out her website, http://www.terriluvsbooks.com. Follow her on Amazon and Goodreads, or connect through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Newsletter- http://eepurl.com/dCKgkj
Goodreads- https://www.goodreads.com/TerriAWilson
Twitter- http://twitter.com/terriawilson
Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/wilsonterria/
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BookBub- https://www.bookbub.com/profile/terri-a-wilson


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Tuesday, October 30, 2018

*Review* The Curse of Crow Hollow by Billy Coffey


Genre: Horror
Published: August 4, 2015
Pages: 414



With the “profound sense of Southern spirituality” he is known for (Publishers Weekly), Billy Coffey draws us into a town where good and evil—and myth and reality—intertwine in unexpected ways.

Everyone in Crow Hollow knows of Alvaretta Graves, the old widow who lives in the mountain. Many call her a witch; others whisper she’s insane. Everyone agrees the vengeance Alvaretta swore at her husband’s death hovers over them all. That vengeance awakens when teenagers stumble upon Alvaretta’s cabin, incurring her curse. Now a sickness moves through the Hollow. Rumors swirl that Stu Graves has risen for revenge. And the people of Crow Hollow are left to confront not only the darkness that lives on the mountain, but the darkness that lives within themselves.


I received an audiobook copy of this book from Audiofile Sync's summer reading program for teens. There was no expectation for a review. I had previously won a copy of the book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program, and now that I've listened to the audiobook, I regret not reading it sooner.

The story got off to a kind of slow start for me, building the background of the events that would ultimately take place. But once the action really started, and the mystery started building, I got really interested in the story. I couldn't help wondering what had happened in the past to make the witch hate the people of Crow Hollow so much, and who was responsible for it. I was also curious about her actual powers and what she was hiding in her cabin.

What really kept me reading though was the way the relationships between the townspeople devolved as the terror increased. It reminded me a bit of a Stephen King novel, like Under the Dome, with the way the townspeople turned on each other.

Overall I give The Curse of Crow Hollow 3.965 stars. - Katie 



I write about what I see and wrap a story around it, which often results in characters who realize stumbling through life is okay because it’s still moving forward. That seems appropriate, I think. In the end we’re all doing the best we can with what we have, smiling through the fear we face, and trying to find the beauty in life’s sameness. So I watch and I listen, and what doesn’t end up in a book will usually find its way to my blog, What I Learned Today.

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Monday, October 29, 2018

*Mail Call* September 2018

I'm only about a month late for this mail call post, and as you can see by the picture below there's really no good reason for that (other than the fact that I was behind on my mail call posts already, and it would be weird to do them out of order. But without further ado, here are the books I got in the mail in September. 


You Welcomed Me by Kent Annan

Synopsis

"Wait, Dad. Are we for them or against them?" Kent Annan was talking with his eight-year-old son about the immigrant and refugee crises around the world. His son's question, innocent enough in the moment, is writ large across our society today. How we answer it, Annan says, will reveal a lot about what kind of family, community, or country we want to be. In You Welcomed Me, Annan explores, in his usual compelling way, how fear and misunderstanding can motivate our responses to people in need. Instead, he invites us into stories of welcome―stories that lead us to see the current refugee and immigrant crisis in a new light. He also lays out simple practices for a way forward: confessing what separates us, listening well, and partnering with, not patronizing, those in need. His stories draw us in, and the practices send us out prepared to cross social and cultural divides. In this wise, practical book, Annan invites us to answer his son's question with confident conviction: "We're for them"―and to explore with him the life-giving implications of that answer.


Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd

Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old Anouk envies the human world, where people known as Pretties lavish themselves in fast cars, high fashion, and have the freedom to fall in love. But Anouk can never have those things, because she is not really human. Enchanted from animal to human girl and forbidden to venture beyond her familiar Parisian prison, Anouk is a Beastie: destined for a life surrounded by dust bunnies and cinders serving Mada Vittora, the evil witch who spelled her into existence. That is, until one day she finds her mistress murdered in a pool of blood—and Anouk is accused of the crime.

Now, the world she always dreamed of is rife with danger. Pursued through Paris by the underground magical society known as the Haute, Anouk and her fellow Beasties only have three days to find the real killer before the spell keeping them human fades away. If they fail, they will lose the only lives they’ve ever known…but if they succeed, they could be more powerful than anyone ever bargained for.

From New York Times bestselling author Megan Shepherd, Grim Lovelies is the glittering first book in a new, epic YA fantasy series. Prepare to be spellbound by the world of Grim Lovelies, where secrets have been long buried, friends can become enemies, and everything—especially humanity—comes at a price.


The Boy at the Keyhole by Stephen Giles

Synopsis

For fans of Shirley Jackson, Sarah Waters and Daphne du Maurier, an electrifying debut about a boy left alone in his family’s English estate with a housekeeper he suspects has murdered his mother 

Nine-year-old Samuel lives alone in a once-great estate in Surrey with the family’s housekeeper, Ruth. His father is dead and his mother has been abroad for months, purportedly tending to her late husband’s faltering business. She left in a hurry one night while Samuel was sleeping and did not say goodbye.

Beyond her sporadic postcards, Samuel hears nothing from his mother. He misses her dearly and maps her journey in an atlas he finds in her study. Samuel’s life is otherwise regulated by Ruth, who runs the house with an iron fist. Only she and Samuel know how brutally she enforces order.

As rumors in town begin to swirl, Samuel wonders whether something more sinister is afoot. Perhaps his mother did not leave but was murdered—by Ruth.

Artful, haunting and hurtling toward a psychological showdown, The Boy at the Keyhole is an incandescent debut about the precarious dance between truth and perception, and the shocking acts that occur behind closed doors.


Moon Child by Michelle Weese

Synopsis

The small coal mining town of Raven Hollow was all Stormy ever knew. That, and her insufferable bible thumping mother. Her house was a place where dreams died and hopes were dashed before they had the chance to breathe life into her beaten down soul.

Until one day… a power emerges inside of her. Not only igniting a spark of hope, but setting it ablaze.

When a mysterious letter arrives from a relative she’s never met, Stormy latches onto the idea of a better future. But with a mother hell-bent on keeping her locked away, Stormy must find her chance to escape before time runs out.

In a matter of days, the small life she is used to gets turned upside down as two worlds collide and she stares her fate right in the eyes.




Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima

Synopsis

I was puzzled by how I had changed. But I could no longer go back . . . 
It is spring. A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Territory of Light follows her over the course of a year, as she struggles to bring up her two-year-old daughter alone. Her new home is filled with light streaming through the windows, so bright she has to squint, but she finds herself plummeting deeper into darkness, becoming unstable, untethered. As the months come and go and the seasons turn, she must confront what she has lost and what she will become.
At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Yuko Tsushima’s Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire, and transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time. It won the inaugural Noma Literary Prize.


And that is the info on all of the new books I got in the mail in September. I actually won my copy of Moon Child from a giveaway on Facebook rather than through Goodreads, which makes September a VERY light Goodreads win month for me. I was most excited about the Grim Lovelies win since I'd been denied an ARC through Netgalley while playing YA Request Roulette. Which of these books are you most interested in reading my review for? - Katie 

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*Mail Call* August 2018

I don't really have any good reason for why it took me so long to get this post built. The number of physical books I've been winning on Goodreads has decreased dramatically in the past several months now that Goodreads is charging authors to host giveaways. But I was busy with proofreading and trying to get caught up on other things. But without further ado, here is the mail that I got in August.


She Wants It by Jill Soloway

Synopsis

In this poignant memoir of personal transformation, Jill Soloway takes us on a patriarchy-toppling emotional and professional journey. When Jill’s parent came out as transgender, Jill pushed through the male-dominated landscape of Hollywood to create the groundbreaking and award-winning Amazon TV series Transparent. Exploring identity, love, sexuality, and the blurring of boundaries through the dynamics of a complicated and profoundly resonant American family, Transparent gave birth to a new cultural consciousness. While working on the show and exploding mainstream ideas about gender, Jill began to erase the lines on their own map, finding their voice as a director, show creator, and activist. 

She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy
 moves with urgent rhythms, wild candor, and razor-edged humor to chart Jill’s evolution from straight, married mother of two to identifying as queer and nonbinary. This intense and revelatory metamorphosis challenges the status quo and reflects the shifting power dynamics that continue to shape our collective worldview. With unbridled insight that offers a rare front seat to the inner workings of the #metoo movement and its aftermath, Jill captures the zeitgeist of a generation with thoughtful and revolutionary ideas about gender, inclusion, desire, and consent.


Boom Town by Sam Anderson

Synopsis

Award-winning journalist Sam Anderson’s long-awaited debut is a brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City--a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny.

Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous "Land Run" in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed.

Boom Town
 announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Mosesto civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.


So Much Life Left Over by Louis de Bernieres

Synopsis

A POWERFULLY EVOCATIVE AND EMOTIONALLY CHARGED NOVEL FROM THE ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF CORELLI’S MANDOLIN

They were an inseparable tribe of childhood friends. Some were lost to the battles of the First World War, and those who survived have had their lives unimaginably upended. Now, at the dawn of the 1920s, they’ve scattered: to Ceylon and India, France and Germany, and, inevitably, back to Britain, each of them trying to answer the question that fuels this sweeping novel: If you have been embroiled in a war in which you confidently expected to die, what are you supposed to do with so much life unexpectedly left over? The narrative unfolds in brief, dramatic chapters, and we follow these old friends over the decades as their paths re-cross or their ties fray, as they test loyalties and love, face survivor’s grief and guilt, and adjust in profound and quotidian ways to this newest modern world.

At the center are Daniel, an RAF flying ace, and Rosie, a wartime nurse. As their marriage is slowly revealed to be built on lies, Daniel finds solace—and, sometimes, family—with other women, and Rosie draws her religion around herself like a carapace. Here too are Rosie’s sisters—a bohemian, a minister’s wife, and a spinster, each seeking purpose and happiness in her own unconventional way; Daniel’s military brother, unable to find his footing in a peaceful world; and Rosie’s “increasingly peculiar” mother and her genial, shockingly secretive father. The tenuous interwar peace begins to shatter, and we watch as war once again reshapes the days and the lives of these beautifully drawn women and men.


Coma Dreams by N. Lawrence Mann

Synopsis

A follow-up to the critically acclaimed suspense novel, Full Breach, N. Lawrence Mann unleashes the second installment of the Blue Warp series.

Struggling with inner demons after the loss of his child, Retired Air Force Colonel Brett Stafford is in search of missing pieces in his life when he is involved in a single-car accident and slips into a coma for six months. Using his newfound—and unrefined—ability to heal, Brennen Reynolds attempts to revive the colonel on the day his life support is to be terminated. Brennen is only partially successful, as the person awoken is not Colonel Stafford. He may look the same, but this colonel is dangerous. Brutal killings occur when the new entity escapes from a New England rehabilitation center and vanishes into the waking world. Pressured by time, Brennen and his friends must try to piece together what went wrong and how to reverse the process before further tragedies occur and the colonel loses himself forever.




How to Read the Constitution & The Declaration of Independence by Paul B. Skousen

Synopsis

Have you ever wanted to read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and really understand what they’re saying? 

Learn how they impact your life; your rights and freedoms? How the branches of government were formed, and why?

You’re not alone. Millions of Americans want a deeper understanding of their country’s founding principles and don’t know where to start. When the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were written by our founders over two centuries ago, they were designed to endure. And indeed they’ve remained, as Paul Skousen writes, “the most amazing freedom formula ever invented”—but navigating eighteenth-century legal language can be challenging.

Recognizing this problem, Skousen provides an easy, step-by-step guide that will forever change the way you think about your country and your freedoms. Using visual tools, exercises, and several valuable memory aids, this book will help you:

•Master the Constitution’s seven articles and the twenty-seven important rights named in the Bill of Rights.
•Navigate the Declaration’s five power statements on freedom and unlock their eighteenth-century phrases with a convenient glossary.
•Discover how the Constitution’s guiding principles protect human rights.
•And so much more.

Thousands of books describe the origins of these famous documents, but only How to Read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence gives you a path to truly understanding them.


Remembering Shanghai by Isabel Sun Chao and Claire Chao

Synopsis

Outstanding Memoir winner and Book of the Year, second place, awarded by the Independent Author Network

A high position bestowed by China’s empress dowager grants power and wealth to the Sun family. For Isabel, growing up in glamorous 1930s and ’40s Shanghai, it is a life of utmost privilege. But while her scholar father and fashionable mother shelter her from civil war and Japanese occupation, they cannot shield the family forever.

When Mao comes to power, eighteen-year-old Isabel journeys to Hong Kong, not realizing that she will make it her home—and that she will never see her father again. Meanwhile, the family she has left behind struggles to survive, only to have their world shattered by the Cultural Revolution. Isabel returns to Shanghai fifty years later with her daughter, Claire, to confront their family’s past—one they discover is filled with love and betrayal, kidnappers and concubines, glittering pleasure palaces and underworld crime bosses.

Lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations from a hardscrabble village to vibrant Shanghai to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid memoir explores identity, loss and the unpredictable nature of life against the epic backdrop of a nation and a people in turmoil.


Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Synopsis

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens.

Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.




And that is all the books I got in the mail in August, just seven books, but I'm pretty excited about all of them, so it's not all bad at least. Which of these books are you most interested in reading my review over. - Katie

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*Mail Call* July 2018

It's been a while since I posted a mail call post, so I'm working to get caught up now. On that note, here are all the books that I got in the mail WAY back in July. 


Letter Tracing Book for Preschoolers 3-5 & Kindergarten

Synopsis

Letter Tracing Book for Preschoolers 3-5 & Kindergarten: A Letter Tracing Practice Book for Kids

Give your child all the practice they will need for writing! With this book, your child will be learning every letter, tracing letters, and even writing them on their own! 

Check out all of the contents of these abc letter tracing worksheets: 

• Step-by-step instructions: Your child will learn how to write letters, one stroke at a time. These contain both uppercase and lowercase letters! 
• Examples for every letter: Each letter has a word that begins with that letter and a picture alongside it. This way, your student will be familiar with every letter. 
• Tracing letters template: After your preschooler learns the steps, there are several alphabet letters to trace for hands-on practice! With and without the numbered steps, that way they can gradually learn to write the letters on their own! 
• Blank lines: Once they are able to trace letters, there are empty lines available to practice writing letters without any guides! By the end, your kindergartener will be freehanding every letter! There are still horizontal lines to keep letters even. 

It's a preschool letter tracing guide your child will love!


Be a Better Writer by Steve Peha

Synopsis

One Book for All Kinds of Writers and All Kinds of Writing

Whether you’re writing essays for school or fiction for fun, this book helps you be a better writer.

For School...
Improve your grades with techniques like the What-Why-How and Content-Purpose-Audience strategies that clarify your thinking and strengthen logical arguments on tests, in essays, and on research reports. Use Sentence Patterns and the Plain English for Handy Analysis approach to improve your grammar without having to learn grammar rules. Get your work done faster, develop more confidence, bring home better report cards, and score higher on state tests.

For Fun...
Improve your creative writing by using The Five Facts of Fiction to dream up compelling characters and powerful plot lines that keep your readers reading from beginning to end. Produce rich description with the Tell-Show strategy. Render your ideas in well-chosen words and smooth-sounding sentences. Find your voice and translate your passion to the page so your readers feel it, too.

For Anyone...
You have a voice the world wants to hear. You have stories to tell, real and imagined, that readers can’t wait to read. You have things to say that will change the way people think and feel, and that will shape the way they look at life after seeing it through your eyes. Don’t keep your readers waiting; give them things to read. Don’t wait for someone to discover you; discover yourself. Don’t wait to be a better writer; be a better writer now!


Primary Anomaly by Peter Sonntag

Synopsis

In a post-apocalyptic world full of war, inequality, and corruption, one young man may have the power to change everything.

In the year 2033, what began as a breakthrough in understanding the human genome became the end of civilization. Decades later, Eibmoz Corporation establishes Habitats in low radiation zones in an attempt to revive society, installing a totalitarian regime in the process. But the Corporation only allows the pure—those unaffected by mutation—inside. Everyone else must join one of the warring factions in the decaying wastelands outside the Habitat’s walls.

When the Corporation launches a new augmented soldier program, sabotage by an unknown enemy destroys the experiment and delivers the one surviving specimen—a young man—into the Decay. Without any memory of his origins, identity, or purpose, the struggle of drone No. 1613 begins. Caught in the middle of the Decay’s volatile geopolitical landscape and perplexed by his surfacing abilities, he must embark across treacherous territory, where his search for answers may endanger everything he holds dear.


Spotted Her First by Emma Dean

Synopsis

Three hot leopard shifters? Yes please.

Piper is a librarian at Sacramento State working on her graduate thesis, but her quiet life turns upside down when three hot guys literally crash into her world. They move into her house and her life, telling her she's wanted by a demon and a witch for her pharaoh's blood. She just didn't realize how much they would take over her life in the name of protecting her.

Piper is overwhelmed by the paranormal world and everything in it, including the fact that somehow all three of these guys are her mates. She has two weeks to find a way out of a demon contract and figure out how she's going to deal with all three of these domineering shifters in her life and in her apartment. Will Piper be able to save herself and the pride she's grown attached to before it's too late?

*This is a steamy reverse harem shifter romance with some MM. All paranormal books by Emma Dean exist in the same paranormal world - the Council of Paranormals.


Do Story by Bobette Buster

Synopsis

Today's world wants to know you and the real story behind why you do what you do. Whether you have a product to sell, a company mission to share, or an audience to entertain, people are more likely to engage and connect if you deliver a well-crafted story with an emotional core.

Bobette Buster is a story consultant, lecturer and screenwriter who works with the major studios such as Pixar, Disney and Sony Animation, and in top film programs all over the world. In this, her first book, she shares the tools and principles used by some of the world’s best storytellers and helps you apply them to your own. 

Find out: How to source, structure and shape your story; Ways to discover the essence of your story; Why finding the emotional connection with your audience can take a story from good to great.

So, what’s your story?

Bobette Buster is a screenwriter, documentary producer, story consultant and lecturer. She grew up in Kentucky, a region renowned for its great storytellers. As a student she produced an oral history of the area that is now archived at the Kentucky Museum. She then moved on to Hollywood to learn the business of script development, and is now a story consultant to the major studios - notably Disney and Pixar, and in top film programs all over the world. Since 1992 she has been Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California’s Graduate School of Cinematic Arts where she created the first MFA program in Original Feature Film Development.


The Waiter by Matias Faldbakken

Synopsis

In the tradition of modern classics The Dinner and A Gentleman in Moscow comes The Waiter, in which the finely tuned balance of a grand European restaurant (that has seen better days) is irrevocably upset by an unexpected guest.

In a centuries-old European restaurant called The Hills, a middle-aged waiter takes pride in the unchangeable aspects of his job: the well-worn uniform, the ragged but solid tablecloths, and the regular diners. Some are there daily, like Graham “Le Gris”—also known as The Pig—and his dignified group of aesthetes; the slightly more free-spirited drinking company around Tom Sellers; and the closest one can get to personal friends of the waiter, Edgar and his young daughter, Anna.

In this universe unto itself, there is scarcely any contact between the tables...until a beautiful and well-groomed young woman walks through the door and upsets the delicate balance of the restaurant and all it has come to represent.

Like living in a snow globe, The Waiter is a captivating study in miniature. Everything is just so, and that’s exactly how the waiter needs it to be. One can understand why he becomes anxious when things begin to change. In fact, given the circumstances, anxiety just might be the most sensible response...

With the sophistication of The Remains of the Day and the eccentricity of The Elegance of the HedgehogThe Waiter marks the North American debut of an exciting new voice in literary fiction.


Resist by Veronica Chambers

Synopsis

A perfect tool for young readers as they grow into the leaders of tomorrow, Veronica Chambers’s inspiring collection of profiles—along with Senator Cory Booker’s stirring foreword—will inspire readers of all ages to stand up for what’s right.
You may only be one person, but you have the power to change the world.
Before they were activists, they were just like you and me. From Frederick Douglass to Malala Yousafzai, Joan of Arc to John Lewis, Susan B. Anthony to Janet Mock—these remarkable figures show us what it means to take a stand and say no to injustice, even when it would be far easier to stay quiet.
Resist profiles men and women who resisted tyranny, fought the odds, and stood up to bullies that threatened to harm their communities. Along with their portraits and most memorable quotes, their stories will inspire you to speak out and rise up—every single day.



The Story of a Marriage by Geir Gulliksen

Synopsis

A dramatic portrait of the dissolution of a marriage, written with brutal and lyrical precision, and nominated for the Nordic Prize.

Jon, who is losing his wife to another man, is trying to understand what happened to his Great Love, by working, painfully, to see the story from her perspective. It begins as he asks her: "Can you tell me about us?" As he looks to his past and within himself, he begins to question the conventions of masculinity and femininity, understanding himself uncommonly as a man who challenges the male role--he's deeply embedded in family life, and identifies as sensitive, vulnerable, and nurturing. And finally, in an effort to understand how his wife could fall in love with someone else, he attempts an ultimate act of empathy: to tell the story from the other man's point of view, raising crippling questions: Is it possible to have sex without violating oneself or the other? How much of what we think is love is only projection? Is it possible to truly know another person? 

With prose unsettling in its precision and emotional heft, The Story of a Marriage cracks wide open the familiar story of a failed love, as it turns cliched phrases over and over again until they crumble, revealing a bitter hollowness--or ringing new meanings.


The Stiletto Woman by Marisa Ferraro

Synopsis

Ladies, are you ready to up your dating game?

Well pour yourself a drink and have a good read of this. Navigating today's dating scene can be confusing. That's why you need a good wing woman to go with your good shoes.

In The Stiletto Woman, Marisa tells it like it is and gives you the support and girly pep talk you need to blaze your way through the jungle of social pressure, heartache and loss, confusing relationship and dating dynamics and even fashion conundrums.

If you are struggling to find meaningful connections in today's dating world and even meaning of yourself and finding who you are and what you want, you are not alone. Women all over the world sympathise with your struggle. Using one part common sense, two parts transparency and a dollop of good humour and empathy, Marisa shares lessons from her experiences and others to help you transform self- doubts into Self- Empowerment.

Take control of your love life and find your happiness by rediscovering the beautiful woman that is you.


The Drama Teacher by Koren Zailckas

Synopsis

By the New York Times bestselling author of Mother, Mother and Smashed comes a propulsive new thriller: the story of a desperate and devious woman who will do anything to give her family a better life

Gracie Mueller is a proud mother of two and devoted wife, living with her husband Randy in upstate New York. Her life is complicated by the usual tedium and stressors—young children, marriage, money—and she’s settled down comfortably enough. But when Randy’s failing career as a real estate agent makes finances tight, their home goes into foreclosure, and Gracie feels she has no choice but to return to the creatively illegal and high-stakes lifestyle of her past in order to keep all that she’s worked so hard to have. Gracie, underneath all that’s marked her life as average, has a lot to hide about where she’s from, who she is, and who she’s been. And when things inevitably begin to spin out of her control, more questions about the truth of her past are raised, including all the ones she never meant to, or even knew to, ask. 


Written with the style, energy, and penetrating insight that made her memoir Smashed a phenomenon, Koren Zailckas's next novel confirms her growing reputation as a psychological novelist that can stand up to the best of them.


The Dependents by Katharine Dion

Synopsis

After the sudden death of his wife, Maida, Gene is haunted by the fear that their marriage was not all it appeared to be. Alongside Ed and Gayle Donnelly, friends since college days, he tries to resurrect happy memories of the times the two couples shared, raising their children in a small New Hampshire town and vacationing together at a lake house every summer. Meanwhile, his daughter, Dary, challenges not only his happy version of the past but also his view of Maida. As a long-standing rift between them deepens, Gene starts to understand how unknown his daughter is to him--and how enigmatic his wife was as well. And a lingering suspicion seizes his mind that could upend everything he thought he knew.

Katharine Dion's assured debut moves seamlessly between Gene's present-day journey and the long history of a marriage and friendship. Rich and wonderfully alive, The Dependents is the most moving kind of drama, an intimate glance into the expanse of family life and the way we must all eventually bridge the chasm between what we want to believe and what we know to be true.


God an Autobiography by Jerry L. Martin

Synopsis

The voice announced, “I am God.” For Jerry Martin, that encounter began a personal, intellectual, and spiritual adventure. He had not believed in God. He was a philosopher, trained to be skeptical— to doubt everything. So his first question was: Is this really God talking? There were other urgent questions: What will my wife think? Why would God want to talk to me? Does God want me to do something? He began asking all the questions about life and death and ultimate things to which he—and all of us—have sought answers: Love and loss. Happiness and suffering. Good and evil. Death and the afterlife. The world’s religions. The ways God communicates with us. How to live in harmony with God. God: An Autobiography tells the story of these mind-opening conversations with God. 

Jerry L. Martin was raised in a Christian home. By the time he left college, he was not a believer. But he was interested in the big questions and so he studied the great thinkers. He became a philosophy professor and served as head of the philosophy department at the University of Colorado at Boulder and of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to scholarly articles on epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and public policy, he wrote reports on education that received national attention and was invited to testify before Congress. He stepped down from that career to write this book. 

Martin lives in Pennsylvania and is married to Abigail L. Rosenthal, professor emerita at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.


Mr. Nice Guy by Jennifer Miller & Jason Feifer

Synopsis

From the husband and wife writing duo Jennifer Miller and Jason Feifer comes Mr. Nice Guy, a funny and all too real comedy about the pursuit of success in life--and love--in today's working world.
Lucas Callahan, a man who gave up his law degree, fiancée and small-town future for a shot at making it in the Big Apple. He snags an entry-level job at Empire magazine, believing it’s only a matter of time before he becomes a famous writer. And then late one night in a downtown bar he meets a gorgeous brunette who takes him home...
Carmen Kelly wanted to be a hard-hitting journalist, only to find herself cast in the role of Empire's sex columnist thanks to the boys' club mentality of Manhattan magazines. Her latest piece is about an unfortunate—and unsatisfying—encounter with an awkward and nerdy guy, who was nice enough to look at but horribly inexperienced in bed.
Lucas only discovers that he’s slept with the infamous Carmen Kelly—that is, his own magazine’s sex columnist!—when he reads her printed take-down. Humiliated and furious, he pens a rebuttal and signs it, "Nice Guy." Empire publishes it, and the pair of columns go viral. Readers demand more. So the magazine makes an arrangement: Each week, Carmen and Lucas will sleep together... and write dueling accounts of their sexual exploits.
It’s the most provocative sexual relationship any couple has had, but the columnist-lovers are soon engaging in more than a war of words: They become seduced by the city’s rich and powerful, tempted by fame, and more attracted to each other than they’re willing to admit. In the end, they will have to choose between ambition, love, and the consequences of total honesty.


So that's all the new books that I got in the mail in July. I think I'm most excited about reading Resist myself. Which of these books are you most interested in reading my review on? - Katie 
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