Cover: I like it, but after I read the book I think the UK cover is a better reflection of the book
Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It’s gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie’s estranged father–an elusive European warlock–only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it’s her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.
By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.
As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.
The United Kingdom Hex Hall Cover
This is the book that started popping up – almost magically on book blogs everywhere. I saw it – I liked what I seen – I wanted to read it!
Hex Hall was the fix I was hoping it would be. The first in the Hex Hall series and the first book from author Rachel Hawkins, I was more than satisfied.
Rachel Hawkins doesn’t only stick with the all too familiar other world creatures we have come to expect (werewolves and vampires, witches and warlocks)…. we get more and I loved thinking of faeries with their onion skinned translucent wings , and shapeshifters who change with their moods.
With all the usual things you deal with in a school setting you have the popular girls, the coveted boy (enter the all too cute Archer), the rebellious outsider, and of course the teachers that cause a total class synchronized eye roll.
Main character and newest addition to Hex Hall, Sophie is a delight to read. She is funny and snarky and I for one am anxious for the next book in this series to grace my reading room. This is a good and mostly clean read (there is one mention of teenage sex in the book) that I really enjoyed.
Justin had to be to the airport to catch a flight back to Minneapolis this morning at 7 am….. we synchronized our cell phones to wake us up at 5 am. I was able to use the navigation system on my phone for the first time ever and LOVE it! I consider myself very directionally challenged and I don’t even drive Minneapolis for fear of getting lost. This little gadget brought me right to the airport and back to the hotel with no panic by me. LOVE it – and she talks to me and tells me where to turn! I will call her Emily. 🙂
So now…. I am back at the hotel and fully awake at 6:30 am. Having COFFEE and chatting with the nice lady setting up breakfast. Having missed out on In My Mailbox (kudos to Kristi at Story Siren for this gem of a meme!) that I usually post on Saturday evenings, thought I would add that to my early morning plan as a few books had come int he door before I left for Florida on Thursday morning.
College in a NutskullI skimmed through the pages if this book when it came in and it looks like it could be a fun read! The layout is kind of unique and looks like notebook paper.
The Missing Element by John L. Betcher. With this book, I had pleasant email exchanges with the author and love the fact that this is a Minnesota author writing about a Minnesota mystery.
Conquering Mr. Darcy by Abigail Reynolds. When looking up this book, that does not release until August 2010, it has a different name on-line. The book on-line is called To Conquer Mr. Darcy. Either way interesting and this will by first Darcy book….
Disrupting Grace by Kristen Richburg. This book intrigues me and disturbs me and I have not even opened it yet. This is a true story of a family who adopted and had to relinquish the child because she just did not connect to them. I am still unsure how I will feel about this book and I am hopeful that I read this with an open mind.
That’s my mailbox. Not sure what our plan today is yet. Just me and Brad now in Florida. I need to look for something to do this afternoon, maybe we will fit a late afternoon show, and Hungry Howies pizza which Brad says has the best pizza around and you can choose a flavor for your crust. Hmmmmm….. now I am intrigued. 😀
Button your blouse, here comes a sandstorm of laughs!
Travel isn’t always what we dream it will be, but oh, the stories that follow. Share in the hilarious, bizarre, and unforgettable misadventures of 29 women whose trips went comically awry. From Australia to Zambia, up Nepal’s mountains and along Mexico’s beaches, the true stories in this collection will make you laugh, groan, and sympathize with these travelers who took a trip on the lighter side.
Lose your panties on a city street in Abu Dhabi with Christie Eckardt
* Dodge beer bottles and punches with Alison Wright as she serves up brew at a wild pub in Australia
* Enjoy the nutty nitty-gritty of Burning Man in the Nevada desert with Christine Nielsen
* Feel the delicious freedom to be fat in Tahiti with Sandra Tsing Loh
* Turn beet red with Kate Crawford in Paris, locked out of her boyfriend’s apartment in a t-shirt and nothing more
* Toss your cookies with Deborah Bear as she tests alternative seasickness remedies on a Pacific voyage
Including stories by Anne Lamott, Ellen Degeneres, Sarah Vowell, Margo Kaufman, Sandra Tsing Loh, Adair Lara, and many more…
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I picked this book up last summer when I was on the North Shore for the weekend with my girlfriends. There was a cute little book store right on the docks by Lake Superior and I found this fun read.
I read most of this a week ago during the readathon but finished it and skimmed through it again while on the plane to Florida, which I thought was appropriate for this book. I literally laughed out loud at some of the funny happenings in this book….. travel nightmares, undergarment malfunctions, and one of my personal favorites – Ellen Degeneres fear of flying, hilarious description of the 6 peanut in flight snack, and of course, punching a nun.
If you travel – I think you would really enjoy this book and be able to relate to some of the funny stories within this book.
Other books in this series (and ones I think I will look for this summer when I am inevitably in that same book store again in Grand Marais, MN…)
Day two in Florida…. day two in shorts! 😀 I am having breakfast in the hotel while the boys are still asleep.
Yesterday, Justin and I went to Pensacola Beach and read. I could seriously do that for the next two days here…. loved it! However my boys are complete opposites and while Justin will hang out with me at the beach and read (he is a reader!), Brad would be bouncing off the walls. He needs to do. The only way I will get to the beach these next two days is if I can find something to do in that area.
We picked Brad up yesterday at 4:30 at the Navy Base. That was a pretty interesting event. When I went in to sign him out they yell “Female on deck!”
Well…. now isn’t that awkward…
And after I leave “Female has left the deck!”
Brad toured us around the base pointing out the galley where they eat, the Nex where he picks up his food and toiletries, where he picks up his uniforms….
We then went out to eat at a place he picked, Red Robin which has delicious and totally unhealthy large hamburgers. Then back to the hotel as all that sun had me shot! I think I was asleep by 10:00.
Today there is no plan…. I would love to get back towards the beach but we will see what happens. 🙂 In the mean time I am happily enjoying my oatmeal and Coffee prepping a book review for today and doing a little people watching….
Hex Hall and me on Pensacola Beach
Justin On The Beach with Nineteen Minutes
What are you doing this weekend and what books are you taking with you?
While on an ill-advised holiday to Nigeria to repair their failing marriage, Andrew Rourke, a journalist, and his wife, Sarah, editor of a fashion magazine, meet Little Bee, a 16-year-old girl, and her older sister, Kindness. The girls are running for their lives from the men who have ransacked their village for oil. Even after suffering an act of unimaginable violence that day, the participants can hardly imagine how their lives will intertwine—and be irrevocably changed. As Andrew spins out of control and Sarah struggles to raise the couple’s child, the appearance of Little Bee, now a refugee who has come to London in search of the Rourkes, her last best hope, forces both women to make difficult choices.
I didn’t know what I was getting into when I read this book. It was chosen as our April book club read, and the first time I heard of the book was at our March meeting when it was nominated. This is what I knew about the book that evening in March:
We don’t want to tell you too much about this book!It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it.Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this:
It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific.
The story starts there, but the book doesn’t.
And it’s what happens afterward that is most important.
Who wouldn’t want to read that?
Then when I came home from book club and read the synopsis on-line… I was a little skeptical. The book wasn’t what I had through it would be about from what was described during book club. I have to admit, I went into this book with an attitude that I was not going to like it.
The Other Hand is another title this book has been published under
As little Bee opens,we find little Bee in immigration detention, a place where we has been for two years. She has learned to protect herself by dressing in loose clothing and wearing heavy boots that are donated to the detention center to avoid the attention of men. She has also spent this time reading everything she can get her hands on which has given her two years of learning the English language. As Little Bee is released (sort of) from the center, she has hung all her hope on a name and an address for the O’Rourkes who she had met under horrifying circumstances years earlier in her own country. These circumstances, are what this book centers around.
Sarah O’Rourke is not my favorite person. She lacks qualities that I value. She puts more into her job than into her family…. and she seeks for what she is missing in the arms of another married man. Her life is spiraling out of control and she acts as if, or perhaps she really doesn’t, know.
Little Bee is a fighter and a survivor and somehow through out this book and the circumstances that drew Bee and Sarah together I felt strongly that this was a book that needed to be read. While at times is can be described accurately as visually gory, the setting of this book in Nigeria, was an accurate portrayal for me and reminded me of some of the circumstances I have seen and heard about from my time in Honduras.
As I completed this book I had a new respect for what Chris Cleaves had put together. The first part of the book took me a while to wrap around where I was reading from and I was somewhat lost as to what was happening until I made my way tot he background story of how all these characters come together. From that point on, I flew through the book, fully engrossed in the storyline. While it was not the book I thought I was going to be reading, it was the book I was meant to read.
Bookies Thoughts:
This was our book club read for April and for our group the book over all rated low. Some of our members found it too horrifying and the language flow of the book to be choppy.
Even in a low rated book, we always seem to find interesting discussion and the line about Scars was one that led us into such discussion:
“I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”
In the book we found that Little Bees scars are what saved her.
We also found not only humor – but sadness as Little Bee had an escape plan, or more so, a way to kill herself wherever she was. Little Bee was truly a survivor and she had made up her mind that no one would ever take her like her sister was taken. She would rather die by her own hand.
Book Club Ideas:
We had a potluck and centered our food choices around the Little Bee book. For those of you who have read the book, you know there is not a lot of food discussion. I hound in the grocery store graham crackers by Nabisco in the shape of, you got it, little bees. I made a cream cheese dip to go with it.
Angie in our group made plantains and a Nigeria type cookie made with corn meal. Kaydi brought a rice dish with beans.
Little Bee and her sister renamed themselves. While our book club did not do this, I did find on-line that a suggested book club activity for this book would be to rename each of us by characteristics we are known for.
If you would like to know more about Nigeria and some of the issues discussed in this book link here.
My flight from Brainerd to Minneapolis (a 30 minute flight) was memorable because the stewardess on the flight was quite unusual. She used different voices as she read the safety info about the plane. No kidding. She used an Irish accent at some points, a southern one through other parts, and a deep mans voice about the no smoking rules. Can I say this was funny and disturbing? There were no kids on the flight….. of course, I will always remember her as she asked the pregnant couple in front of me if they were having twins….
Oh…… can you say awkward? ;D
After three flights and a rental car, we made it to the hotel. Last night we went out to dinner at a restaurant called Kings Buffet and – YUM! But of course with the word buffet, in it – totally ate too much. After that we went to the Movie Date Night which was extremely laugh out loud funny. Seriously – if you like Steve Carell and/or Tina Fey – go …. and laugh….. much.
Today we are going to go check out the beach with our books! We pick up Brad around 4:30 pm so then we will tour the Navy Base, have dinner – and possibly a movie if Brad is up for it.
This morning as I have my second cup of coffee, I am finishing up a review I wanted to go up yesterday but I never got back to it. Have a super fab day wherever you are!
This morning I am on a plane from Brainerd to Minneapolis. There I will meet up with Justin (College Son) and together we will fly to Pensacola Florida to spend the weekend with Brad (Navy Son).
No worries…. Laptop and Coffee Cup will be traveling along so I can chat away with you and continue to post reviews that I have to get caught up on from this past weeks reading and the readathon.
You may have noticed I changed the header to this blog. That’s not the only change…. I also have followed through on my trimming of the blog name, “One Persons Journey Through A World Of Books”. Thanks to the advice I received from many of you when I posted the possibility of change (see post here) I trimmed up the name. No worries – I made this completely user-friendly. There are no link changes and – thanks to your advice, I kept the original as a subtitle…. in fact added a little fun to it by adding “and coffee”.
The Monday Meme will remain under the original blog name so new buttons do not have to be formed.
The new name is simply Book Journey and works for me as that is my blog address and my Twitter name. I also use that when commenting on blogs so I believe I still have name recognition.
Anyway – I have a plane to catch! I will be on later today with an exciting review and probably twittering tonight from Florida! (Twitter name: Bookjourney)
As Brava, Valentine begins, snow falls like glitter over Tuscany at the wedding of her grandmother, Teodora, and longtime love, Dominic. Valentine’s dreams are dashed when Gram announces that Alfred, “the prince,” Valentine’s only brother and nemesis, has been named her partner at Angelini Shoes. Devastated, Valentine falls into the arms of Gianluca, a sexy Tuscan tanner who made his romantic intentions known on the Isle of Capri. Despite their passion for one another and Gianluca’s heartfelt letters, a long-distance relationship seems impossible.
As Valentine turns away from romance and devotes herself to her work, mentor and pattern cutter June Lawton guides her through her power struggle with Alfred, while best friend and confidante Gabriel Biondi moves into 166 Perry Street, transforming her home and point of view. Savvy financier Bret Fitzpatrick, Valentine’s first love and former fiancée who still carries a torch for her, encourages Valentine to exploit her full potential as a designer and a business woman with a plan that will bring her singular creations to the world.
A once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity takes Valentine from the winding streets of Greenwich Village to the sun-kissed cobblestones of Buenos Aires, where she finds a long-buried secret hidden deep within a family scandal. Once unearthed, the truth rocks the Roncallis and Valentine is determined to hold her family together. More so, she longs to create one of her own, but is torn between a past love that nurtured her, and a new one that promises to sustain her.
I was first introduced to Adriana Trigiani when I read for a book discussion Viola In Reel Life – which I loved! When offered the chance to read and review Brava Valentine, all I had to do was see the name Trigiani and I knew I was in. Isn’t that what every author hopes for in a reader?
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Nothing like good characters to set the mood of a book and Adriana Trigiani brings the characters I came to love from Very Valentine (my review is here), back in this trilogy.
You open up this lovely book and here is the first line that is treat for your eyes:
”The most magical thing happened on the morning of my grandmother’s wedding in Tuscany. It snowed.”
Do you not just love that? I am a nut for great first lines to books and this one was like going to a great restaurant and having your dessert first. I stopped and savored this line.
I adore the writing style of this book and the many (many) laugh out loud moments as Valentine Roncalli becomes part owner of the family shoe business, and looks through her old boyfriend file for dates to family functions.
On the more serious side of the book, there is also a family scandal, and real relationship struggles that make this a well-rounded book.
I enjoy characters that make me wish I could just hang out with them in their world for a while, and that is what Adriana brings to the table. Bigger than life characters and a story line that will leave you hoping for a third helping. I enjoyed this second book in the Valentine series even more than the first.
I am groggy. That first cup of coffee was just a trial run…. I am going to have to have a do over this morning.
*Going to kitchen for second cup… shuffling feet back to laptop*
Ok. Good Morning! That’s better. 🙂
Last nights book was super fabulo-sious *A new spell for Harry Potter that makes everything wonderful 😉. I love those girls! Our discussion of Little Bee by Chris Cleave was so good. With mixed reviews and thoughts, it was still a rocking good time that I can not wait to share with you tomorrow!
Our book pick for May is The Girl She Used To Be by David Cristofano. I am super excited about this recommendation. I had nominated this one last month and one of the girls in our group read it and thought it was fantastic! This one will go in the suitcase.
And speaking of the suitcase which is still unpacked… I leave at 7 am tomorrow morning for Florida (insert SQUUUUEEEEE here). I am excited, but have been so busy I feel completely disorganized. I work a full day today, need to drop some books at the post office, run on treadmill with Heidi at 4 pm, get home around 5 and pull it all together.
Yikes! There were books from the readathon pile that I did not get to. A few of them are going in the suitcase. Any thoughts as to which books they may be, or any suggestions of what books should be going along? My nineteen year old son who is joining me on this trip is also a reader so I am hoping to take books he will enjoy too.
Now that my mind is in high gear from the second cup of coffee I am thinking I really need to get the Word Shakers on line book club going again after the winter hiatus!
Now I am feeling a little like Corky Romano (following clip) and if you have not seen this movie – HIGHLY recommend it. I laughed and laughed….. (wish I had his car here too)
Have an awesome day peeps! I am off to work – review up later 🙂
When nurse Hanne Abrahamsen impulsively shields Steffen Petersen from a nosy Gestapo agent, she’s convinced the Lutheran pastor is involved in the Danish Underground. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But truth is hard to come by in the fall of 1943, when Copenhagen is placed under Martial Law and Denmark’s Jews—including Hanne—suddenly face deportation to the Nazi prison camp at Terezin, Czechoslovakia. Days darken and danger mounts. Steffen’s faith deepens as he takes greater risks to protect Hanne. But are either of them willing to pay the ultimate price for their love?
This book is based around the days of 1943, WWII, a Lutheran Pastor named Steffen, and a Jewish Nurse named Hanne. Set in a time I have never known, other than through books, I found that this particular story at times took my breath away as I put myself in the characters world. Steffen steps outside his comfort zone of “behind the pulpit” and the pages begin to turn…
Is it possible to love and hate a book?
Never a fan of war related stories, this one, held on to me. I had no problem at all staying entirely engrossed in this fictional, historical, Christian read, that brought this horrible war and this incredible love to my home.
There are so many things in this world that I have not lived or experienced, and author Robert Elmer, through a fictitious read about a true war, brought a piece of history to me that I had not really known. I now feel in my heart – that I have a little of that fear, that “hold on to your faith” through everything knowledge, because of this book.
Robert Elmer is a former pastor, reporter and as copywriter who now writes from he home he shares with his wife Ronda in northern Idaho. He is the author of over fifty books, including eight contemporary novels for the adult Christian audience and several series for younger readers. Combined, his books have sold more than half a million copies worldwide. Like his popular “Young Underground” youth series, Wildflowers of Terezin was inspired by stories Robert heard from his Denmark-born parents and family. When he’s not sailing or enjoying the outdoors, Robert often travels the country speaking to school and writers groups.
Book Journey 