The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)29 Comments

In 1947, American historian and veteran of WWII, Martin Mitchell, wins a Fulbright Fellowship to document the end of British rule in India. His wife, Evie, convinces him to take her and their young son along, hoping a shared adventure will mend their marriage, which has been strained by war.

But other places, other wars. Martin and Evie find themselves stranded in a colonial bungalow in the Himalayas due to violence surrounding the partition of India between Hindus and Muslims. In that house, hidden behind a brick wall, Evie discovers a packet of old letters, which tell a strange and compelling story of love and war involving two young Englishwomen who lived in the same house in 1857.

Drawn to their story, Evie embarks on a mission to piece together her Victorian mystery. Her search leads her through the bazaars and temples of India as well as the dying society of the British Raj. Along the way, Martin’s dark secret is exposed, unleashing a new wedge between Evie and him. As India struggles toward Independence, Evie struggles to save her marriage, pursuing her Victorian ghosts for answers.


You have to wonder if a book that is so incredible looking on the outside could possibly deliver on the inside.  Wonder no more.  Elle Newmark brought me into her journey

I admit I was a little cautious about reading yet another book that was war related… I feel as of late I have over dosed a bit on this topic, yet The Sandalwood Tree provided more than a compelling cover, on the inside the words fell right into place along side my heart.

I love the idea behind the hidden letters and the flash forwards and backs are done flawlessly so I easily was able to follow along with the time changes and the story lines and they mixed and mingled to weave this much desirable story.

The characters were well written and I found myself drawn to Evie and then again to her son Billy.  Honestly there is so much more I would like to say in this review but am censoring myself not to give any bit of the adventure away.   I hope you too will experience this book and go on this adventure.


Heart Of Deception by M.L. Malcolm

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)13 Comments

After the death of Maddy’s mother, Martha, during the Japanese attack on Shanghai in 1937, Leo married a hard-hearted woman he entrusted to take Maddy to safety in the U.S. By 1942, 12-year-old Maddy has come to live with her aunt, Martha’s sister, Bernice Mason, in posh Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Bernice hopes to protect her from Leo, a mysterious man she doesn’t trust, who by now has reached North Africa. Leo’s encounters with such real-life American intelligence figures as Col. William Eddy and Carlton Coon lend verisimilitude to his WWII exploits. Maddy’s later romantic travails with Bradley Harrington Gordon IV and New York mobster Gene Mandretti yield unexpected conflicts.


This is the sequel to Heart Of Lies which sadly, I have not read. After dipping into this novel, I really wish I had.  This is a literary treat for the historical fiction lovers.  Leo Hoffman is a character that will keep you reading.  You will want to know more about him and I know I missed out by missing part of this incredible characters story in the first book….

however…

Heart Of Deception still brings much to the table.  The book starts with a bit of background story to Heart Of Lies so you can get a bit of what has been happening before you move on.  As you follow Leos journey trying to work his way back to his daughter by gaining citizenship.  With twists and turns that occasionally lost me on the way to their destination, but I plugged on trapped in this intriguing stary and having to know how it ended.

I met M.L. Malcolm in New York during BEA last year and what an incredible fun woman!  Always wearing a hat in what I would say is a signature style for her, Malcolm was a delight to talk to.


 

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for inviting me to be a part of the tour,

HarperCollins for providing me with a courtesy copy

Morning Meanderings: The Books The Books… The Books Are In T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)43 Comments

 

Good morning.  MMMMMM Coffee is tasting good this morning!  I had a busy day yesterday and today, tomorrow – and through the weekend is looking about the same.  I enjoy my 30 minutes in the morning writing these posts and “chilling” before I rev up and fly out the door like the late rabbit in Alice in Wonderland….


I love my Shelf Awareness email I receive each weekday morning.  It is filled with bookish news on book stores, books, trends, etc….  yesterday it gave the top 10 BANNED books of 2010.

And the banned books are:

  1. And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson Reasons

  2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

  3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

  4. Crank by Ellen Hopkins

  5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

  6. Lush by Natasha Friend

  7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

  8. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

  9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie

  10. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Have you read any of these?  I have read #2, #5, and #10.  Last year I participated in banned books week – this year it is September 24 – October 1, by reading banned books all week-long.  Yes it is true I read Dr. Suess’ The Lorax (shudder!), The Absolute True Diary Of A Part Time Indian – see it up there on the list *waves*, SPEAK (oh wow this one was good!), The Bell Jar, Farenheit 451, Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix, Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret – yes, that is Judy Blume, Freedom Writers, The Face On The Milk Carton.

It was…. an awesome week and I plan to do it again this year.  Banned Books are not what you may think they are…. they are books that have been challenged and asked to be removed…. in the case of the Lorax, people complained that it was bad for the forestry because the book is about removing trees.  Yes…. I kid you not.  😉


 

On the flip of that, the books that are up for an award are as follows and SSSQQQUUUUUU for ROOM making that list.  My book club voted for ROOM to be our May read.  I am excited as I think it will make for awesome discussion!

 

Finalists for the Orange Prize for fiction are:

Room by Emma Donoghue
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson
Great House by Nicole Krauss
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
Annabel by Kathleen Winter

 

Have you read any of these?  Other than ROOM I have not but have been interested in Great House for some time now.

Ok… got to run…. work… work out, kick boxing… home….

This weekend I am going on a Girls Weekend – and I will give more details on that…. on another morning 😀

The Priest’s Graveyard by Ted Dekker

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)24 Comments

Two abandoned souls are on the hunt for one powerful man. Soon, their paths will cross and lead to one twisted fate.

Danny Hansen is a Bosnian immigrant who came to America with hopes of escaping haunted memories of a tragic war that took his mother’s life. Now he’s a priest who lives by a law of love and compassion. It is powerful men and hypocrites who abide by legal law but eschew the law of love that most incense Danny. As an avenging angel, he believes it is his duty to show them the error of their ways, at any cost.

Renee Gilmore is the frail and helpless victim of one such powerful man. Having escaped his clutches, she now lives only to satisfy justice by destroying him, regardless of whom she must become in that pursuit.

But when Danny and Renee’s paths become inexorably entangled things go very, very badly and neither of them may make it out of this hunt alive.

Judge not, or you too will be judged.

 

 

Cue the scary background music right?  And really… you should as Dekker opens his new book with a 10 page written confession written by Danny about what he has done and why he did it.

*gulp*

And just like that I am back in the dark world that surrounds a Dekker book.  If you have read Dekker before this book will not take you by surprise.  Dekker tends to write Dark, and in my opinion, as of late – his books are even darker.  As a Christian author I respect his unique take on putting faith messages into his writing although truth be told – many can read his books and not know they are reading a faith based book.

The Priest’s Graveyard is intense and does speak to the dark mystery lover in me as well as the long buried version of me who in high school loved all things Steven King and then eventually on to Dean Koontz.  The two main characters Renee who is from California, has had her share and then some of drug use and knows what rock bottom looks like.  Danny on the other hand is from Bosnia and has carried with him a long time agenda and now is a Priest in California with an unusual hobby.  😉  – Think Dexter.  😉

At Dekker’s usual fast pace you will find this book at times gorey, haunting – and much like a roller coaster it will get your heart pumping a little faster as the plot thickens and you go – up – up – up…. before you come crashing and screaming down to the conclusion.

I have read many of Ted Dekker’s books and can say I enjoyed this one more than some of his recent ones.


Amazon Rating

I have updated the 2011 WHERE Are You Reading Map to Include The Priests Graveyard


This book was sent to me for review for part of a blog tour


Morning Meanderings… A Book Lover Participates In A Readathon, A Meme, And A Sport

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)23 Comments

 

Good morning!  Did everyone survive the weekend?  I hope wherever you are at you were able to experience a bit of nice weather, a little reading, and a lot of fun….

I think I did…. Friday was almost 60 degrees for the first time in Minnesota this year.  I actually got on my bike.  It’s true!

Saturday – well Saturday was the Dewey Read-A-Thon and despite the Camp Benedict Silent Auction being on the same day (I ran to it twice!) and dinner out…. I still did ok for a chick on the fly!

Here is what I accomplished:

Hate List by Jennifer Brown- start to finish 432 pages … sadly, this is the only book I finished

Open House by Elizabeth berg (car audio) 30 minutes

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen (kitchen/living room audio) 1 hour 10 minutes

Massacre at Mountain Meadows (bathroom/bedroom audio) 30 minutes

I was reading (listening) for charity, for Camp Benedict the camp for children with AIDS and their families.  I pledged $1.00 for every 10 pages I read or 10 minutes I listened to audio.  I also opened it up to others to sponsor me if they chose or make a donation…. here are the results:

My reading:  $43.00

My Audio:      $13.00

Millie:  $3.00

Key from Random Acts Of Reading donated .5 cents a page:  $21.60

Don Saxum $25.00

For a total of:  $105.60!

 

Yesterday I skipped my morning gym weight lifting class knowing I was going to be there in the afternoon and instead visited the Monday What Are You Reading participants.  I really enjoy seeing what everyone is reading and many times I can get through the list without adding a book to my tbr…. yesterday that was not true.

At There’s A Book, I found Danielle’s review for The Kitchen Daughter by Jael Mchenry

Also, Danielle caught me again with her review of The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander

At Helen’s Book  Blog, her review of A Thousand Sisters by Lisa Shannon grabbed me right away!

At Not Just Reading I was interested in a book called Half The Church by Carolyn Curtis James (unfortunately, this is the only one my library did not have.)

The top three have been reserved at my library.  I usually visit the other blogs with my library reserve on-line page open…. just in case 😀

FINALLY – update to Kickboxing.  Yesterday evening I took my third class and enjoyed it very much.  They put me with a girl who was there for the first time and while we are both beginners, it was fun to talk to her and when we were given instructions I could whisper, “don’t worry…. I am still learning that too!”

It was fun – quite the work out and I am LOVING it!  My friend Heidi is coming with when I go Wednesday evening, and I am working on my friend Wendy!  (Come on Wendy – everyone is doing it!  😛 )

 

Ok – off – busy day…. book club meets tonight to discuss Sunday’s At Tiffanys by James Patterson

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)103 Comments

It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  D  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!

I love being a part of this and I hope you do too!  As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme.  I offer a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment telling me how many you visited.  **You do not have to have a blog to participate! You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.


Last weeks winner:

Laurel from Laurel Rain Snow

Congratulations!  Please choose an item out of the PRIZE BOX and email me your choice with your mailing address as well!   journeythroughbooks@gmail.com

Coming off a readathon weekend is always exciting as there are books galore in the Monday posts and I am so excited to get around and see what everyone is reading!  😀

I had a great week of getting in some good reading… but I was not the best review writer and have many I am going to work on over the next few days – but seriously…. so worth the wait 😀


Here was my week:


Good Bye to Sookie Stackhouse  (Review of Dead Before Dark)- my adventures into this series was short-lived…. Sookie and I have agreed to disagree and I have shown her the door.


A BEA (Book Expo America) Scholorship Opportunity – hurry and check this out – you could win a chance to go!  😛


What is your most treasured book? I love the comments that are shared here about the book(s) on your shelves that you cherish the most and why…. mine is one I can not even read.


Little Princes by Connor Grennan – review this week


Sunday at Tiffany’s by James Patterson – Bookies Book Club read and review coming on Wednesday


Open House by Elizabeth Berg – review this week


Dreamland by Sarah Dessen (my first Dessen!!!) review this week


Hate List by Jennifer Brown – review this week


So…. this weeks looks like it will be strong for reviews – thank you to the Dewey read-a-thon… always a great time to work on catching up and reading – and I LOVE that we all stop and read all over the world for this event 🙂


So… moving forward this week… what’s on deck?


“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

I am in the mood for some Hobbit – no idea what brought this on other than the fact that I have not read these books in years and as I was looking for new audio this week… I felt this one may be fun.


The search for God in the midst of horror, disaster, and loss has confounded believers for centuries. How does belief actually matter in the lives of those who suffer? Yancey, popular journalist and public speaker, travels the world and attempts to make some theological sense of the hurting people and devastated places he observes, from Virginia Tech to Mumbai.

This is for our Faith In Fiction group read and I have read and enjoyed Yancey in the past (In fact I taught a class on Grace for a couple of years based off one of his books, What’s So Amazing About Grace.)


Teenaged Johnny works as a cobbler in his mother’s shoe repair shop in a posh hotel in South Beach. He spends his days with his friend Meg and designs his own line of shoes while dreaming of wealth to free his family from the confines of poverty. Unexpectedly, the striking Princess Victoriana of Aloria comes to the swanky Miami hotel for a royal visit. The super-hot partying princess pleads for Johnny’s help in finding her missing brother, and offers of money and a royal marriage convince him to take her seriously-even when she explains that the prince has been turned into a frog. With the aid of a magical cloak and some headphones that allow him to hear animals speak, Johnny embarks on a journey wherein he encounters talking swans, a fox named Todd, and two angry giants. When he lands in hot water with an evil witch bent on destroying him, Meg comes to his rescue. The pair journey from South Beach to Key West, to Europe, and to Manhattan; and in the end, Johnny finds wealth, fame, and true love.

Ok… LOL…. I know…. this one if for The Fairy Tale Fortnight that is coming up and hosted by Misty, The Book Rat) and Ashley from Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing… more on that coming soon… 😉

 

 

 

Two abandoned souls are on the hunt for one powerful man. Soon, their paths will cross and lead to one twisted fate.

Danny Hansen is a Bosnian immigrant who came to America with hopes of escaping haunted memories of a tragic war that took his mother’s life. Now he’s a priest who lives by a law of love and compassion. It is powerful men and hypocrites who abide by legal law but eschew the law of love that most incense Danny. As an avenging angel, he believes it is his duty to show them the error of their ways, at any cost.

Renee Gilmore is the frail and helpless victim of one such powerful man. Having escaped his clutches, she now lives only to satisfy justice by destroying him, regardless of whom she must become in that pursuit.

But when Danny and Renee’s paths become inexorably entangled things go very, very badly and neither of them may make it out of this hunt alive.

Judge not, or you too will be judged.

 

This one is for a blog tour on Tuesday…. Dekker has been hit or miss the last few years… I am curious where this one will land.


I need another audio to start too…. but will wait and see what comes in from the library.  😀


So that’s about it.  I am looking forward to what you are reading as now that I have cleaned up my library books… I am itching to check out more.  Add your What Are You Reading Post to the linky below and I as well as others will be able to come and check out your post and add to our own reading lists…. that I am sure.  😀


Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Happy reading!!!

What is your most treasured book?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)77 Comments

I have been wanting to write this post for a while now.  I am curious if you have a book in your collection that has special meaning to you… it may be your favorite book in the world…. or it may (like in my case) be one you have never even read.  It could be one a parent or adult read to you as a child that still holds fond memories or one handed down for generations.  Really… it could be anything.

My most treasured book, the one I keep in a protective box, belonged to my dad.  My dad died in a house fire along with my sister in 1980.  This book was found in the ashes… while the cover is damaged, the pages are remarkably clean.  The book is one he was given in 1966 when he was in Vietnam.  It is a Viet-Anh Vietnamese to English dictionary.

I have very few items of my dads… pretty much everything was destroyed, so this is a treasure.  Later this week would have been his birthday and I like  to take this out of the box and touch it knowing that a long time ago, his strong hands held this book too.

I would love to hear about your book treasures….  feel free to comment here and if you do decide to write a post about yours, let me know and I will link it here.

Morning Meanderings… Sunday Something…

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)19 Comments

Good morning.  I have just a few minutes this morning as I have an early commitment.  For all of you who did the read-a-thon yesterday, how much fun was that?  I had a blast even with a few things in my day that pulled me away.  I made it to hour 18 and then it was literally light out for me.  I was done – kupoot…. I wanted to do more… I could not.

I will gather totals later – probably Tuesday morning as tomorrow is all Monday What Are You Reading and I try hard to keep Mondays clear for that purpose alone.

Anyhoo…. I would love to hear if you participated how did you do?  What did you read?  What did you love?  What was the best part of the read-a-thon for you?

I am out… but I wanted to leave you with this….

This was my cover made up for one of the mini challenges….. below is the actual cover…  and yes, that is ET….. he was my stand in.  😛

LOL…. have a sweet day!  😀

Dewey Read-A-Thon…. we interrupt the regularly scheduled hoo hah and what nots of this blog…

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)63 Comments

And I am OFF and READING!  I am up and ready to READ READ READ today!  If you are scratching your head saying Read-A-Thon… what read-A-Thon… you can check it out on the Dewey Read A Thon site.  My book list is not impressive or well thought out as I just didn’t plan for any thing really and plan to use the old “grab as I go” technique.  Seriously – I am not lacking for any reading materials here…

First here’s a bit about me:

1)I am reading from Central Minnesota

2)Three random facts about me are – I just took up kick boxing this week (OW!), I have been to Honduras 8 times to work with kids who live on the street, and I have a once in-house office that now serves as my library (and thank goodness as the option would be to have books EVERYWHERE… er, which I kind of do anyway.

3)I have plans to read 5 or 6 books throughout the read-a-thon (see book list below)

4)I have no real goals other than to commit to reading instead of seeing something shiny and getting distracted… oh and to have fun.  Fun is a good thing 😛

5)This is my 4th read-a-thon…. my advice to newcomers is just have fun…. (oh, I said that already?)  Well…. that’s how important it is… tackle the books that you want too…. read at least one guilty pleasure book – that book on your shelf that you want to read sooooooo bad and just never seem to get to it.  Oh, you know the one.  Shoot…. so do I… now I need to change my list!  “Doh!”

 

Midnight Book Girls Mini Challenge was to create a sentence using books only.  FANTASTIC!  Here is what I got:

Thirteen Reasons Why The Outside Boy Sold The Dress Lodger. (LOL)

 

I had to try Hungry Readers Challenge which was to recreate a book cover for a book I am currently reading for the readathon…. so here goes…

and the actual cover….

LOL – that was AWESOME!  And yes I used my ET from Disney World for the cover pick….LOL

 

 

In Hour 7 here is Hannah’s (Word Lilly) Challenge where we were asked to try origami:

This.... is a frog. Yes.. feel free to laugh 😛

A total epic fail on my part, but decided to post it anyway… at least for a smile 😀

 

Ok entering Mini Challenge for hour Four:  Book Puzzle – we are asked to create a puzzle using book titles…. so FUN!!!  😛

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

 

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

 

I do have a few in the planning and I will let you in on them here:

I eat Hate Lists for breakfast!  Oh… well, uhhh… in this case I do.  I am kicking off on this book that I was able to read a few pages last night and I am moving forward on as soon as this post is up.

Dreamland is my “I need an eye break” audio all set up in the kitchen ready to play if I stop for substance….

Berg of course is on the agenda… what would a read-a-thon be if I had not included Berg in the mix…. that’s like having a party without chips…… UNHEARD OF!

Partially read and then set down for I don’t know why…. I need to complete this book.  I think the read-a-thon is a good time to finish the books I have not but have meant too.

Another one I have started and not finished yet…. today (HOPEFULLY) could be the day I complete it.

Hmmm….. I guess I do kind of have a plan then.  Well – Excellent! Also, I am reading for a cause – my post of where my pages are being donated to is here.  😀

I will post updates on this post throughout the day.

Off I go to read and hope to see you all back here for the mini challenge later today!

Dewey Read-A-Thon Mini Challenge: Book Club Recommendations

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)150 Comments

Hey there all you read-a-thoners…. how YOU doing?  😛

Had a little Joey from friends flash back…


This challenge is now completed – the winner using random.org is Shel from The Hungry Readers!  Congratulations Shel!  😀  Please email me at journeythroughbooks@gmail.com with your book choice from Amazon up to a $15 value.

Ok…. on to the Mini Challenge!  It’s no secret I LOVE talking books and honestly – not all books are “chat worthy”.  I have been in my book club for 10 years now and the book reviews I enjoyed the most and remember the most are the ones that really brought out great discussion.  My challenge for you today – if you choose to accept it, is to share with me in the comments a book you would recommend as being very chat or discussion worthy.  You do not have to be part of a book club to do this challenge, I am just looking for a book title with author that you would recommend as being a great thought-provoking and/or discussion worthy book.

***For a bonus entry – add in a menu that would go along with the book discussion – (my book club loves to theme food around the books we review).

That’s it!  I plan to eventually make a post of all the book club recommendations that show up on this post and link back to you as suggesting that book (if you have a blog).  Yes, it is ok to put down a book that someone else recommends, I am looking for a list of different reads but certainly will count your entry even if someone else already suggested it.

When this mini challenge ends I will choose one winner using random.org to choose a book I can purchase from Amazon.com that is $15.00 or less and I will send that book to you.


Oh – and get up and stretch your arms and grab a fresh cup of coffee, a bottle of water or a granola bar…. stay strong and keep on reading!!! 😛