Month: June 2009

Freebie Friday: Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)22 Comments

**  WE  HAVE  A  WINNER!!!  **

Congratulations to Barbara Davis from The Serenity Gate

Using Random.org, the number of her post was drawn for this book.

Thank you as always to everyone and stay tuned for the next Freebie Friday … there is one always going on!

Late posting on this giveaway…. I had a C R A Z Y busy day and well, the day just got away from me.  I water foram excited though, at even this evening hour to come through with a great Freebie Friday.  I have a NEW copy of Water For Elephants that needs to find its way into a book lovers hands.  This could be your lucky day!

We recently read this book for my book club and when it was chosen I had forgotten I had already had it waiting patiently on my book shelf to be read for some time.  I went out to our local book store and bought a new copy, and didnt even notice until this last week that the new copy was sitting on my desk and I had read the one I had all along for the book review.  “Sigh”…. true confessions of a Book Addict….

HOWEVER…. my error is your gain!  This book is an incredible read, just check out my review of Water For Elephants and you will see what a delightful book it is!

Anyway – here is how to earn yourself chances to win this beautiful book:

1.  Comment here with your favorite read about an animal.

2.  Earn a bonus chance to win by posting a comment on any of my other book reviews (up to 2 extra points for 2 comments on different posts)

3.  Post a link to this on Twitter and/or post this giveaway on your blog and then come back and let me know the link to this giveaway.

There you have it – up to 4 chances per person!   This giveaway is over at midnight on July 3.  US addresses only and no PO boxes.  I will post the winning name here and email the winner for mailing info.

Thanks as always for coming by!  Good luck!

Audio Book Giveaway: How Successful People Think by John C Maxwell

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)13 Comments

Thank you to Anna Balasi and Hachette Audio Books for allowing me to review this audio book as well as to offer chances for a giveaway of this to three lucky winners!

The perfect, compact listen for today’s fast-paced world, How Successful People Think (derived from Maxwell’s previous book, Thinking for a Change) will teach listeners the 11 secrets successful people know. Arranged in an easy-to-follow format, America’s leadership expert, John C. Maxwell, will teach listeners how to expand their thinking and achieve their dreams.

Here is how to receive chances to win this audio book:

1. Post here with a comment of what you would call good advice.

2. For a second chance to win, please post this contest to your blog and post a link to it for me to see.

3. For a third chance to win, Follow me on Twitter!

Contest will run through July 13th. The winners are chosen by using random.com. I will post the 5 winners here as well as email you for your mailing information. The books will come from the publisher. Please US entries only and no po boxes.

Thanks as always for stopping by! :)

Listen to an excerpt.

Audio Book Giveaway: The Juror by George Dawes Green

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)16 Comments

Thank you to Anna Balsi and Hachette Audo Books for offering yet another great audio book for me to review as well as offering you a chance to win one of three that I will be giving away.  This looks incredible and I am excited for it to hit my mail box so I can start listening!



Here is how to receive chances to win one of these “The Juror” audio books:

1. Post here with the name of an author who writes great trial books… (Be sure you leave me a way to connect with you in the event you are one of the winners!)

2. For a second chance to win, please post this contest to your blog and post a link to it for me to see.

3. For a third chance to win, Follow me on Twitter!

Contest will run through July 13th. The winners are chosen by using random.com. I will post the 5 winners here as well as email you for your mailing information. The books will come from the publisher. Please US entries only and no po boxes.

Thanks as always for stopping by! 🙂

Listen to an excerpt.

Audio Book Giveaway: The Swimsuit by James Patterson

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)20 Comments

Thanks to Hachette Audio Books, I am able to offer 3 of this audio book for giveaway!

Syd, a breathtakingly beautiful supermodel on a photo shoot in Hawaii, disappears. Fearing the worst, her parents travel to Hawaii to investigate for themselves, never expecting the horror that awaits them.

Here is what you can do to receive  chances to win this audio book:

1.  Post here with your favorite James Patterson  book title.  If you haven’t read Patterson, share your favorite mystery/suspense author.  (Be sure you leave me a way to connect with you in the event you are one of the winners!)

2.  For a second chance to win, please post this contest to your blog and post a link to it for me to see.

3.  For a third chance to win, Follow me on Twitter!

Contest will run through July 13th.  The winners are chosen by using random.com.  I will post the 5 winners here as well as email you for your mailing information.  The books will come from the publisher.  Please US entries only and no po boxes.

Visit James Patterson’s website at www.jamespatterson.com

Giveaway: Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)26 Comments

I am delighted to not only be receiving this book from Hachette Book Group and Valerie Russo, but off seasonalso to be able to offer 5 copies of this book to lucky readers of this blog!

Acclaimed novelist Anne Rivers Siddons’s new novel is a stunning tale of love and loss.

For as long as she can remember, they were Cam and Lilly–happily married, totally in love with each other, parents of a beautiful family, and partners in life. Then, after decades of marriage, it ended as every great love story does…in loss. After Cam’s death, Lilly takes a lone road trip to her and Cam’s favorite spot on the remote coast of Maine, the place where they fell in love over and over again, where their ghosts still dance. There, she looks hard to her past–to a first love that ended in tragedy; to falling in love with Cam; to a marriage filled with exuberance, sheer life, and safety– to try to figure out her future.

It is a journey begun with tender memories and culminating in a revelation that will make Lilly re-evaluate everything she thought was true about her husband and her marriage.

Here is what you can do to receive  chances to win this book:

1.  Post here with your favorite “road trip” destination.  (Be sure you leave me a way to connect with you in the event you are one of the winners!)

2.  For a second chance to win, please post this contest to your blog and post a link to it for me to see.

3.  For a third chance to win, Follow me on Twitter!

Contest will run through July 13th.  The winners are chosen by using random.com.  I will post the 5 winners here as well as email you for your mailing information.  The books will come from the publisher.  Please US entries only and no po boxes.

Anne Rivers Siddons website

Interview with Anne Rivers Siddons

Giveaway! Amy Minute by Joyce Meyer (audio)

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)20 Comments

any minuteThank you to Anna Balasi with Hachette Audio Books for allowing me not only to to review this audio book but offer a giveaway to three lucky winners to receive a copy of this as well sent directly from them!

Sarah Harper is driven, pursuing happiness in all the wrong places. It’s not until she faces a chance encounter with heaven and spends time with the grandmother who prayed for her every day when she was a little girl that she begins to see how her own mother’s bitterness created a hole in Sarah’s life. For the first time, Sarah sees that God created her for a special purpose. When Sarah returns to her own life, she is a woman with a mission. And the unsuspecting world around her will never be the same again.


While I anxiously await my review copy – we can still get the contest started here!  Here is how to get chances to win:

1.  comment here with your name and tell me where you listen to audio books

2.  Earn two extra chances to win if you connect this contest to your blog (send me the link when this is done)

3.  Follow me on Twitter for a bonus chance!

Contest will end on July 12.  US entries only and no PO boxes.  At the end of this contest I will announce the winners here as well as email you for your shipping information.  Good luck to all!

Listen to an excerpt.

The Necklace by cheryl jarvis

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)2 Comments

the necklace

I heard about this book through my book club and was interested right from the start when I heard what it was about:

One day in Ventura, California, Jonell McLain saw a beautiful diamond necklace in a jewelry store window and wondered: Why are personal luxuries so plentiful yet accessible to so few? What if we shared what we desired? Several weeks, dozens of phone calls, and one great leap of faith later, Jonell and twelve other women bought the necklace together–to be passed along among them all.

The dazzling treasure weaves in and out of each woman’s life, reflecting her past, defining her present, making promises for her future. Lending sparkle in surprising and unexpected ways, the necklace comes to mean something dramatically different to each of the thirteen women. With vastly dissimilar histories and lives, they transcend their individual personalities and politics to join together in an uncommon journey–and what started as a quirky social experiment becomes something far richer and deeper.

For one, I love books about strong women.   Secondly – this is a true story of 13 women who bonded a friendship over this necklace.  I like friendships….

The stories within this book – tales from a necklace…. in some cases remarkable (like the money raised for charities), yet in many other cases – confusing.  The book is written giving each chapter a story about one of the women who wore it, but I did not feel the friendship between the women I was hoping for.  There was a lot of negotiating and bickering about the necklace, who could wear, in one case saying public promotion was taboo yet two chapters later it is exactly what they are doing.  We are talking about a $34,000 piece of jewelry that I would thing most of us (certainly myself) would not even consider at $1,000.

I am not a big jewelery fan, I could never see myself even considering to be part of something so costly.  Even though I love the whole concept about sharing an item that bonds you closer together… for me, this book was never about the necklace.  It was always about wanting to read how this group bonded, yet I close the book wondering if they ever really did.

I was initially very excited to review this book.  Yet, I actually had to rewrite this review because it still has left me a bit unsettled by the way it was written.  I seek comfort in the fact that while these women have many things going on in their lives that I find hard to relate too, the necklace did bring good to those whose lives it touched.

There were parts I loved and parts I just didnt feel made for the best reading.  This book rates a below average read from me.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)3 Comments

I had a couple books that I had read a while ago that have recently become movies so I thought it would be fun to blogangels on them as I had read these books before I even knew what blogging was.  One of these books is My Sisters Keeper (see review below this post)…. the other, Angels and Demons.

I like to call my book club the Bookies – ahead of their time.  In 2005 we read this book and chose it as our best book we read that year.  Now in 2009, it is a movie.  Apparently we werent the only ones that thought it was pretty darn good.

Prior to my blogging debut, I wrote all the books I read into a three rng binder and kept reviews there.  No kidding.  I have wrote everything I have read and my thoughts (reviews) long before I ever knew that I would one day be doing it publically.  I have everything I have read since 2002.

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is shocked to find proof that the legendary secret society, the Illuminati–dedicated since the time of Galileo to promoting the interests of science and condemning the blind faith of Catholicism–is alive, well, and murderously active. Brilliant physicist Leonardo Vetra has been murdered, his eyes plucked out, and the society’s ancient symbol branded upon his chest. His final discovery, antimatter, the most powerful and dangerous energy source known to man, has disappeared–only to be hidden somewhere beneath Vatican City on the eve of the election of a new pope. Langdon and Vittoria, Vetra’s daughter and colleague, embark on a frantic hunt through the streets, churches, and catacombs of Rome, following a 400-year-old trail to the lair of the Illuminati, to prevent the incineration of civilization.

Here are my original thoughts on this book:

January 22, 2005:  Once again I have experienced a great read by Dan Brown.  My first experience was last summer when I read The Davinchi Code which was a fantastic read.  Now reading Angels and Demons for our book club, I see similarities in his writing style.  Robert Langdon (same main character in both books), is called tot eh scene of a crime at the Vatican.  I really enjoy reading about the Vatican = what a beautiful and mysterious place.  Breda, in our book club has visited there and had pictures at the review.  BREATH TAKING!

I actually finished reading this book on the plane to Costa Rica on our family vacation.  I gave it to a person who I met onthe plane, a fellow reader and I have to share good reads!

(Update 6/23/2009)  Looking at my old review I see I left out my favorite part of the book, and that was the library.  I remember reading about the library of rare important books, air pressurized, temperature control and guarded in a locked glass room….  I thought if I could only have 10 minutes in that room to breathe in those books….  (much the same feeling I had when I watched the movie National Treasure with Nicholas Cage and they were in the rare library room…bookies awards

As for the movie, I found it a slight disappointment as I had with Davinchi Code as well.  Not really important to the book perspective, but I have to mention that Tom Hanks was not what I pictured of our character Robert Langdon.  Granted, he looked better in Angels and Demons.  I think what disappointed me the most is the fact of how easy it all comes together in the movie version.  In the book you go through a long interesting process of clues and codes… wrong turns and deep plot… in the movie its like they turn a corner and it is just magically there.

The book, then and now rated a great fiction read.  I would recommend not judging this book by the movie.  Read the book.

My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)4 Comments

My book club read this in 2006…. (pre blogging) I was still at that time journaling everything I read in sisters keppera large three ring binder.  The book turned out to be voted on as the book book we read of that year and I have that in my library on a plaque.  I love that three years ago that we had chosen a book to be the best book we had read that year as a group is now going to be a movie.  It’s not the first time we have done that…. but hey, thats a whole other blog post.

So – with the movie coming out soon, I thought I would dust off my notes on this book and blog review it at this time, using my thoughts from three years ago.  This was, at that time, the first Jodi Piccoult most of had ever read.

The difficult choices a family must make when a child is diagnosed with a serious disease are explored with pathos and understanding in this 11th novel by Picoult (Second Glance, etc.). The author, who has taken on such controversial subjects as euthanasia (Mercy), teen suicide (The Pact) and sterilization laws (Second Glance), turns her gaze on genetic planning, the prospect of creating babies for health purposes and the ethical and moral fallout that results. Kate Fitzgerald has a rare form of leukemia. Her sister, Anna, was conceived to provide a donor match for procedures that become increasingly invasive. At 13, Anna hires a lawyer so that she can sue her parents for the right to make her own decisions about how her body is used when a kidney transplant is planned. Meanwhile, Jesse, the neglected oldest child of the family, is out setting fires, which his firefighter father, Brian, inevitably puts out. Picoult uses multiple viewpoints to reveal each character’s intentions and observations, but she doesn’t manage her transitions as gracefully as usual; a series of flashbacks are abrupt. Nor is Sara, the children’s mother, as well developed and three-dimensional as previous Picoult protagonists. Her devotion to Kate is understandable, but her complete lack of sympathy for Anna’s predicament until the trial does not ring true, nor can we buy that Sara would dust off her law degree and represent herself in such a complicated case. Nevertheless, Picoult ably explores a complex subject with bravado and clarity, and comes up with a heart-wrenching, unexpected plot twist at the book’s conclusion.

(as written on 9/8/2006) This book?  Fantastic!  Jodi Picoult has an incredible gift with words.  Her writing keeps you on the edge of your seat, the court case felt so real I may as well have been juror #1, hanging on every word.   This book gives a different twist to sisters Kate and Anna.  Kate has leukemia and Anna, her younger sister is born to supply Kate with the much needed bone marrow and blood cells that Kate needs.  When Anna turns 13… she hires a lawyer for rights to her own body.  This book makes you love, and it makes you hate.  It deals with moral issues and matetrs of the heart.  On a 1 to 5 rating I give it a 7+!  READ IT.  YOU WILL LOVE IT.

(Today – 6/23/3009)  As we all know by now, Jodi Picoult is not a one hit wonder author.  Her name is well known for her incredible writing skills and her way of taking a hot topic and putting a twist on it so you see the whole thing from a different view point.  In my book, she is a must read.

I will add an update to this post after I have seen the movie.  I have seen the previews, which brought it all back, and they made me cry…. can’t wait to see what the movie does to me.