Book Journey

Giveaway: Stand The Storm by Breena Clarke

Published on July 16, 2009August 13, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)91 Comments

Special thank you to Valerie at Hachette Book Group for offering me a review copy of this book and 5 beautiful copies to you the readers!

This giveaway is closed – winners have been announced 🙂

Even though former slaves Annie Coats and her son Gabriel have managed to buy their freedom, their lives are still marked by constant struggle and sacrifice–to the extent that Annie secretly recalls her days on the plantation with fondness. Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood, where the Coatses are seeking to build their new lives–with Gabriel, a tailor, producing uniforms for soldiers and fine suits for pompous politicians, and Annie, a seamstress and laundress, catering to the nearby brothels and stately homes–is supposed to be a safe haven, a “promised land” for former slaves, but is effectively a frontier town, gritty and dangerous, with no laws protecting black people.

In fact, the city’s own emancipation efforts in 1862 serve only to compromise the Coats family’s status, putting Gabriel’s three young daughters (each of them born free of free parents) at risk of becoming the property of the Coatses’ former master. The remarkable emotional energy with which the Coatses rise their daily battles–as they negotiate with their former owner, as they assist other former slaves en route to freedom, as they prepare for the encroaching war, and as they struggle to love each other enough–is what fuels this novel and makes its tragic denoument so devastating.

Author Breena Clarke’s website

This giveaway will run from today until August 10. To sign up to win one of these (5) books:

1) Leave a comment here and answer the question – when you personally think of the word freedom, what does it mean to you?

2) for 2 extra chances blog or twitter about this givaway

3) one more entry if you follow me (twitter or google)

** Please use a separate comment for each entry. USA only please and no po boxes. Be sure your entries have a way for me to contact you if you win.

Thanks everyone! Have fun! Winners will be announced here and emailed for their shipping info.

Giveaway: The Moon Looked Down by Dorothy Garlock

Published on July 16, 2009August 13, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)38 Comments

Thank you to Anna at Hachette for offering me this book to review and 5 copies to give away to you the awesome readers!

This giveaway is closed – winners have been announced 🙂

The new Americana romance from bestselling author Dorothy Garlock, this time set against the backdrop of WWII.

Sophie Heller’s family immigrated from Germany to Victory, a small town in Illinois, before WWII began. Now that the war has affected the town, the townspeople discriminate against Sophie and her family. When a train derails, it is an accident but the Heller family is blamed. Coming to Sophie’s rescue is a teacher from the high school, and despite their cultural differences, a romance starts to bloom.

Author Dorothy Garlock’s website

This giveaway will run from today until August 10. To sign up to win one of these (5) books:

1) Leave a comment here and answer the question – who was that teacher/mentor in your own life that made a difference to you (I do not mean in a romantic way as the book direction, but in a way that changed you for the better- made you a stronger more self assured person)

2) for 2 extra chances blog or twitter about this givaway

3) one more entry if you follow me (twitter or google)

** Please use a separate comment for each entry. USA only please and no po boxes. Be sure your entries have a way for me to contact you if you win.

Thanks everyone! Have fun! Winners will be announced here and emailed for their shipping info.

Morning Meanderings…

Published on July 15, 2009July 16, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)4 Comments

First I am so incredibly excited to debut my new Journey Through Books meme thanks to the brilliance of Michael over at A Few Minutes With Michael. It is fantastic and he really captured me as I am about 91% books and 9% coffee….. Thank you Mike! I bow to you!

I am a little late this morning. The coffee cup and I are just not quite functioning fully yet. Last night I took our Kinship partner Chance (he is 14) to the midnight showing of Harry Potter.

Seemed like a good idea at the time…

I didn’t take into the fact that we would get there at 10:30 and wait in line for an hour and a half so as not to wind up in the way front seats. OR that by the time we rolled out of the parking lot it would be 2:40 a.m.

Oh…. but it was worth it. ; )

That being said…. I did meander over to Alyce’s At Home With Books yesterday and seen a book and a review that has me adding to the wish list. Alyce’s shares about the book Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. The cover is gorgeous… the review is… well, stop by At Home With Books and be sure to tell Alyce hi and look around her beautiful blog site.

The Bookies

Published on July 15, 2009July 12, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)17 Comments

I am part of such a great book club.

We started in August of 2001 with three women. Last night, looking around the room at 14 women (with about 4 missing)… I know I am truly blessed. These women have been a part of great reading, great book debates, and a ton of fun that I would have never imagined.

Last evening was our annual Queen Event. We are usually in Kiwanis Park enjoying a beautiful July day, exchanging books, eating great food and all while dressed in formal wear. Yes, you heard me right…. we go all out for the Queen event. (This event came from the book Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King).

Yesterdays weather went stormy late afternoon and we needed a quick back up plan so everyone headed to my house for the festivities. In this horrible weather, I mean it was pouring out! Straight line winds and trees down in some areas… and here we all are, a houseful of women who love to hang out and read together. It just doesnt get much better than that.

Our Queen event was fun – and this year I was nominated Queen! I have two friends on the Queen’s court (the runner ups) that take over my duties if I should ever be unable to perform them (oh yeah, we are that organized – ha ha). The court is Kaydi Johnson and Amy Misener.

What is so fun about this event is that every year it just gets better and better. We all do little speeches of why we should be the Queen…. some campaign, some sing, rhyme, do a reading, poetry, changing words to popular songs, dance…. whatever – it is all in fun and I love to see everyone and what they come up with.

Every last Bookie is such a great friend to me! I looked around that room last night and LOVE that we do this. Thank you to the great friends I have in the Bookies.

Cassandra King – author of Same Sweet Girls has linked us to her official website! Check it out here!

Morning Meanderings….

Published on July 14, 2009July 14, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)14 Comments

Good morning! What a wild weekend I had! A ball game Friday night, Saturday the hubby and I went out to dinner, and Sunday I met my cousin at 5:30 a.m. to drive about 90 miles to participate in the Tour of Saints bike 50 mile bike ride. I had so much fun!

And now, as I sit here… honestly all I can wrap my brain around is that tonight is out annual Book Club (The Bookies) Queen Event at Kiwanis Park. What we do is we take July off from choosing a book because well… its July. Instead we meet the second Tuesday (always) dressed in formal gowns (only in July LOL) and we all try to win the coveted position of Queen of the Bookies for the next year.

It’s true. I couldn’t make this stuff up. ; )

It actually is a lot of fun. We all bring potluck food to share, our books we want to give to our own charity sale, and we sit and chat about what we read and what we should read, eat and then nominate a Queen. The Queen privileges are:

If we are voting on a book to read and there is a tie, the Queen breaks the tie
If the person who is to choose the next months meeting spot is not in attendance, the Queen chooses the place.
It’s good to be the Queen.

We also have a runner up position too, you know, in the event that the Queen is unable to perform her duties… I guess this would be a Vice Queen? There is a scepter, a crown… and yes, even a royal throne.

This all came out of a book we read in 2007 called Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King. This actually became our book club pick of the year.

So today… I was shocked to discover that we read this before I blogged so while I have my review written in my book journal, it is not here. Or I should say wasn’t here. I am putting it up now as my meandering moment – which today… took me back to 2007, and a review about a book, that changed the way we do book club…

I am still working on my speech for tonight! This is our third year doing this and we get more talented as we go. I am deciding between a poem and changing the words to the Brady Bunch song to The Bookie Club…. either way, I’ll probably post it with the pics….I think I need to make a wand with a foil star on the end….. it’s all part of the speech…. 😉

Have a super fab awesome day!!!

The Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King

Published on July 14, 2009July 15, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)9 Comments

This is a “pre blog” review that in honor of my book club and the fact that this book changed our book club forever.… I think I need to post my hand written review that I wrote on April 25, 2007…

The Book Says: For 30 years, six Southern college friends—the Same Sweet Girls—have been gathering for a biannual reunion. As King’s wry, touching novel begins, the girls are nearing 50 and coming to terms with the life decisions they’ve made. Corrine Cooper gains renown as a folk artist, but battles clinical depression with the help of a manipulative psychiatrist who later becomes her husband; Lanier Brewer is separated after a brief, ill-advised fling; exotic Astor Deveaux, a former Broadway dancer, flirts wildly with men but remains with her husband, a famous painter 33 years her senior; Julia Dupont is trapped in a passionless marriage and an overscheduled life as Alabama’s first lady; Byrd and Rosanelle round out the group. When one of the SSGs becomes terminally ill, the remaining friends are spurred to resolve their own problems before she dies. Corinne, Julia and Lanier rotate as first-person narrators, but King (The Sunday Wife) does little to distinguish their voices, and the parade of characters and stories can be hard to follow at first. Once the names fall into place, however, the story’s gentle Southern humor and warmth shine. It isn’t all iced tea and tomato pie—King tackles some troubling issues—but the characters are true to life, and readers will sympathize with their struggles.

I say: Yowza! 507 pages???? I dont think I have read anything this big since my “Potter” phase!

To think I almost missed out on this book! This was our February pick for book club and I was in Honduras at the time of the review and had not picked it up before I left thinking I would find it at the airport and read it on the plane. It wasn’t at the airport. I had plenty of other books to read so I figured I would just skip this one.

Thanks to Jodi C in my book club who insisted I had to read this book and gave me her copy of the book to do just that.

I am so glad I did.

The characters were strong and bright women, and Cassandra wrote of them in such a language that I could picture them all clearly, their likes and dislikes, their personalities burst from the pages. I liked these women. I loved their bond of friendship that carried on well past their school days – into their lives. Their real lives.

Laughable moments (this is where our Queen event in Book Club came from) and moments that will break your heart and once again I am reminded how thankful I am to have strong friends in my own life, that will help through it all.. the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Cassandra writes a beautiful book on friendships. And it is a powerful one.

ALVOR by Laura Bingham with a signed copy for giveaway!

Published on July 14, 2009July 16, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)58 Comments

Thank you Laura for sending me not only this book, but a second one to give away.

I have to tell you readers…. this came in the mail on Friday and now… it calls me. I have other books I am reading AND enjoying, but this cover, this book…. I want to drop everything and read it now.

“Adarae jolted as the feeling surged through her. She looked carefully at not one, but two little faces, and felt the warm power within them. No one suspected it would be two, but the strenght pulsing through them was undeniable. They stared back into her eyes.”

ALVOR is a spellbinding blend of magic and mystery, enchantment and fairy tale, that asks the age old question:

Do you believe in magic?

FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD Erin and her twin brother, Bain, had never seen the secluded cabin in the woods by their home. Upon entering, they discovered a magical world haunted by pegasi, dragons, and fairies

Are you ready to play?

To enter this giveaway:

1) leave a comment with your favorite fantasy book title (have you reviewed this favorite? If so, link back to the review)

2. Blog about this contest on your site and receive 2 extra entries ( we are helping Laura get the word out about her book!)

3. Follow me on Twitter and/or follow my blog (the link is up on top of the page)

Each chance for entries must be on a separate comment. USA entries only please, no PO boxes.

This giveaway will end on August 7.

See authors website here

Winners of Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons

Published on July 14, 2009July 16, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)5 Comments

I am here with my copy of this book right next to me. I am in the middle of it so I am not ready for the review yet but I can tell you that those of you who have won this book…. you are in for a treat!

So… with no further ado…. I bring to you…. good people of the book community…….

The Winners: