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THE SITTING SWING: FINDING WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BY IRENE WATSON
The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference shows us how guilt, fear and ignorance are borne by our children. Two distinct parts of the book look at an abusive child rearing and the process of recovery that takes place years later. On many levels this is a classic story showing us that change, growth, forgiveness and recovery are possible.
It is also a heartwarming healing story and a testament to the strength and courage of the human spirit. In the end it gives hope and freedom to those that accept the past and move forward by rewriting life scripts that have been passed down for generations.
A Chilling Goodbye by Jean Sheldon is the third title in the Chicago Police Detective Kerry Grant Series. The gutsy crime fighter is a cop and a computer guru, ready to chase criminals on land or online.
Grant finds a body in the dumpster behind her apartment, apparently frozen by the sub-zero temperatures in Chicago. She soon discovers that the body, frozen over ten years earlier, is one of several moved from a cryonic chamber to trash bins around the city.
Along with her partner, Mike Sullivan, Kerry tries to discover why someone removed the bodies, and if any laws had been broken. When they find the owner of the lab stuffed in an empty cylinder, they have the answer to one question.
The bizarre case baffles the detectives until a clue points to a local ice cream factory, where they interview employees who are in anything but good humor.
You can find more information about A Chilling Goodbye and other Detective Grant books at Bastpress.com or Jean Sheldon.com
NOW AVAILABLE!
THE DECADE OF BLIND DATES BY RICHARD ALTHER
Peter Bauman, 45, a gay divorced painter, plunges into the personal ads just prior to the Internet. He first dates a Connecticut physician, a rabid Republican. Another tryst interrupted by his son, Peter is caught naked two-stepping with a tattooed punk. Next, he's snowbound with a geek heavier than advertised, who arrives with a bag of sex toys. Best pal Barry, a Head Start director, counsels him to look between the eyes before the legs.
Peter paints a portrait of his ex-wife Becky and relives their loving relationship. Barry confides the abuse he withstood for 25 years with his ex, Len, who while entertaining tricks, forced him to live in the cellar. A gender-bending soap-opera star briefly enchants Peter with his virtuosity. Then, while painting a portrait of his friend Arlene, Peter is seduced into an affair with her. Barry is furious, as is Peter's daughter who encourages her dad to be gay.
Diagnosed with prostate cancer, Peter paints his first love, Luke, long dead of AIDS. Peter survives surgery but temporarily loses his erection. Pre-Viagra, he conquers the penis pump and relishes a personal trainer whom Barry labels a boy-toy. After a portrait of his brilliant mentor, Lee, Peter delves deeper into abstract oils. A year-long link with a handsome, stern Maine woodsman doesn't jell. Peter is enthralled by a British aristocrat patron who declines further intimacy because of his AIDS. Barry reveals Len slept with Barry's then best friend.
Peter paints his mother, Geraldine, a victim of incest, and confronts his habit of adaptive behavior. He dumps a vacuous date and learns of Barry's beating by Len. He starts to paint Barry, but switches to a self-portrait, exposing his focus on sex to avoid real commitment. For the first time in ten years, he allows his true feelings to emerge. During a decade of sex and shenanigans, Peter, encouraged by his ex-wife, daughter, and son, examines his life and, at last, discovers his soul mate.
Still reeling from the murder at the grand opening of her B&B inn, Trina is beset with yet another mystery. While making renovations, Trina learns that the inn's dumbwaiter is in fact the tomb of someone who died years ago. Soon, Trina finds that there are several other mysteries surrounding her--like the lovely Alexandra who keeps waiting at the inn for her husband, who never arrives; the sexy Rhiannon who meets a strange man late at night and the chanteuse at a local French dinner club who Trina observes becomes extremely upset at the appearance of Lieutenant Klonski. Though Trina tries to solve all these puzzles, she finally realizes that there's a greater mystery in the dumbwaiter than merely an old skeleton.
Joshilyn Jackson was born in the Deep South and raised by a tribe of wild fundamentalists who taught her to be virtuous and upright. Unfortunately, it didn't take, and Ms. Jackson dropped out of college to pursue a career as an actor. She worked in regional repertoire and traveled the southern third of the country with a dinner theatre troupe, but after a few years she realized that she preferred writing plays to acting in them.
She decided both virtue and an education were worth the work, so she went back to college to study English literature, focusing on Modern and Medieval Theater. She graduated with honors from Georgia State. She moved to Chicago and managed to recover from a near-terminal case of culture shock just in time to earn her MA in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Ms. Jackson taught English at UIC, trying to explain the function of the gerund and why Moby Dick is a great book to crowds of hung-over 18 year olds. In her first year of teaching, she won the Student's Choice Award for Best English Instructor.
After graduate school she ran for warmer climes, returning to her hometown and marrying the boy next door. She currently lives just outside of Atlanta with her husband, their two children, a hound dog, and a twenty-three-pound, one-eyed Maine Coon cat named Franz Schubert.
Her short fiction has been published in literary magazines and anthologies including TriQuarterly and Calyx, and her plays have been produced in Atlanta and Chicago. Her bestselling debut novel, gods in Alabama won SIBA's 2005 Novel of the year Award and was a #1 BookSense pick. Between, Georgia was also a #1 BookSense pick, making Jackson the first author in BookSense history to receive #1 status in back to back years. Jackson read the audio version herself, winning a Listen Up award from Publisher's Weekly and making Audiofile's Best of 2006 list. Both books were chosen for the Books-A-Million Book Club. Her third novel, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, a national bestseller, was released in March of 2008.
She is currently at work on her next novel.
Reprinted by permission of Joshilyn Jackson. All rights reserved.
CHOPIN: WHAT THE AUTHORS THINK
Read a set of interviews and roundtables featuring many of The Chopin Manuscript authors, including Jeffery Deaver, Jim Fusilli, David Corbett, John Gilstrap, James Grady, John Ramsey Miller, Ralph Pezzullo, S.J. Rozan, Peter Spiegelman and Erica Spindler.
Bestsellersworld.com and Mysteries Galore.com receive numerous requests to do book reviews. We try to accommodate as many as possible. Many times, there is a long waiting list for books to be reviewed. A new feature has been added to the websites called Express Review Fast Inclusion Service . This is where we can help. You will be provided with a review within two weeks from the date your book is received by the reviewer.
EXPRESS REVIEWS
READING GUIDES FOR BOOK CLUBS
Reading group guides are brief documents designed to help book clubs by providing discussion topics and questions for books.
As a new feature of our website, we plan to add reading group guides. If you have a book club, please feel free to use them. Click on the link below.
Right now we have reading guides for "Abiding Darkness by John Aubrey Anderson", "The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold", "Barefoot" by Elin Hilderbrand, "Finding Father Christmas" by Robin Jones Gunn, "Odd Mom Out" by Jane Porter,"Paint It Black" by Janet Fitch and Carpool Diem by Nancy Star. Many more will be added. Keep checking back.
