Review and Giveaway: How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch by D. Bryant Simmons

Source: D.Bryant Simmons

In this first book in The Morrow Girls series, D. Bryant Simmons sparks a dialogue about domestic violence.

In How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch we're introduced to Belinda who's being raised by her single-parent father in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Most folks call her Pecan, on account her Daddy loved pecan pie almost as much as he loved her. Life is good.

All is well in with their world. That is, until a handsome stranger moseys into town and takes a shine to Pecan. Dad, of course, doesn't trust Ricky Morrow as far as he could throw him. And then...(bum, bum, buuuum). Dad dies suddenly of a heart attack.

Still reeling in grief Ricky convinces Pecan that they should be married and he'll take care of her. The new family of two picks up and moves to Chicago so Ricky can be the boxing champion he dreams of being. Once in Chicago, the babies start coming and the abuse begins.

So begins Pecan's journey into the depths of her hell.

Ms. Simmons has done a brilliant job of crafting a story that will stick with you for a long time. She takes her time in describing the characters so that they are so vivid in your mind, when you look up, you expect to see them standing there. The emotion...turmoil, pain, and rage can be felt deep, deep into your soul. Pecan fiercely attempts to protect her children emotionally and psychologically from the atrocities that they witness at the hands of their father. You can feel all of that.

And now for the giveaway. The publisher has graciously provided, for one lucky winner, your choice of a physical copy or ebook. I'll keep it simple to enter, just leave a comment with your email address, and a random winner will be chosen and notified Saturday, March 8th after 2:00 pm CST. Easy peasy. Open to US residents.

Although a work of fiction, this is autobiographical for too many. The shame of the victims. The constant living in fear. Survival mode.


Some staggering statistics and factoids from The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Safe Horizon

• Domestic Violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior perpetrated by an intimate partner against another. 

 

Source: NCADV

• An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year
• Children who witness violence between one's parents or caretakers is the strongest risk factor of transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next. Boys are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults, perpetuating the cycle of abuse to the next generation. Girls are more vulnerable to abuse as teens and adults.

• Most domestic violence are never reported - help change the facts. Speak up, speak out, and make a difference for victims of domestic violence.

• If you need help:
• The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
• The National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
• The National Teen Dating Abuse Hotline: 1-866-331-9474

Murder in Ancient China: Two Judge Dee Mysteries free during January

The University of Chicago Press is offering the e-book, Murder in Ancient China: Two Judge Dee Mysteries by Robert Van Gulik, for free during the month of January.

Robert Hans van Gulik was a highly educated orientalist, diplomat, musician (of the guqin, a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family) and writer, best known for the Judge Dee mysteries, the protagonist of which he borrowed from the 18th century Chinese detective novel Dee Goong An.

Review: Aliens and Other Stories by Kathleen Wheaton

Aliens and Other Stories by Kathleen Wheaton
ISBN: 978-0931846717
Washington Writers' Publishing House (October 15, 2013)
Paperback, 222 pages
Genre: Fiction - Short stories


Each short story in this collection can be savored or they can all be consumed in a giant gulp. Either way, it is a book to be thoroughly enjoyed. The characters in each story are so well developed that it leaves the reader wanting more...and then you get to the next one. Needless to say, I gulped.

Veteran journalist, Kathleen Wheaton, has intricately connected each tale of exiles and refugees with beautiful precision. A minor character of one story, often becomes the protagonist in another. The stories are inspired by the author's experiences working in Spain and Latin America as a journalist and travel writer. And this is all made evident by her vivid illustration of each of the settings.

The circumstances surrounding the characters fleeing their respective homelands is often haunting. Nazi control for some, Cuba ruled by "the Devil Incarnate" for others, and as the author notes in the beginning, the "dirty war" in Argentina for many.

"Several of the stories in this volume refer to the "dirty war" in Argentina, which began in 1976 when a right-wing military junta overthrew the chaotic presidency of Isabel Peron. Under the so-called National Reorganization Process, an estimated 30,000 people - suspected leftist guerillas, trade unionists, journalists, intellectuals and students - were arrested, taken to clandestine prisons, tortured, and secretly executed. They became known as the desaparecidos, the disappeared.  Although democracy was restored in 1983 with the election of President Raul Alfonsín, many of the thousands of Argentineans who fled into exile established their lives elsewhere and never returned."

But Ms. Wheaton has so skillfully crafted every story that each of them meets their challenges of being "alien, invisible", with resilience. And bits of humor are generously sprinkled throughout the book.

In a Q and A with the author she was asked, "What do you hope readers take away from Aliens and Other Stories?" To which she responded "...So I hope that readers who have been aliens as well as those who simply have felt that way will find they have something in common with my characters."

To that I say, Well done, my friend. Well done.

Aliens and Other Stories meritoriously won the Washington Writers' Publishing House 2013 prize for fiction.

Connect with Kathleen Wheaton:

Author Website
Twitter  (@WheatonKathleen)
Facebook

Goodreads

 




Disclosure: I was provided a copy of this book in exchange only for my honest thoughts.

The Oprah Effect and Publishing. She Still Has It.

It’s no secret that Oprah is the ultimate bookseller. All of her Book Club selections, beginning with The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard in 1996, have become instant bestsellers.

Marilyn Johnson, who wrote Oprah Winfrey: A Life in Books, on Winfrey as an evangelist for books in Life magazine in 1997, has said: "You have to understand that Oprah is in awe of the writers she loves, in the same way that people revere her. She's like a writer's groupie."

Oprah has made publishers a TON of money, but most importantly she made reading accessible again for millions. She let people (primarily women) know that it was ok to take a bit of time for themselves to relax and join in an adult conversation about something they had in common.

Kathleen Rooney, an award-winning poet and a writing instructor at Emerson College, wrote how the Book Club, adored by its fans, deplored by its critics, has been at the center of arguments about cultural authority and literary taste since its inception in 1996 in Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America. Through close examination of Winfrey’s picks and personal interviews with book club authors and readers, Rooney demonstrates how the club that Barbara Kingsolver calls “one of the best possible uses of a television set” has, according to Wally Lamb, “gotten people of all ages to read, to read more, and to read widely.”

Last year, Nielsen BookScan published a list of the best selling titles in her book club over the past decade.

• A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (3.37 million)

• A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (2.70 million)

• Night by Elie Wiesel (2.02 million)

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy (1.39 million)

• We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (1.35 million)

• East of Eden by John Steinbeck (1.31 million)

• The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (1.11 million)

• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (817,000)

• Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio (794,000)

• The Story of  Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (770,000)

When Oprah left daytime talk, she said the Book Club would follow her to her fledgling cable network, OWN. Without offering details at the time, she vowed, "I'm going to try to develop a show for books and authors." I couldn't wait to see what she would come up with, being the business woman she is, I was sure it would be brilliant. But I wondered if it would still make the kind of impact her club on network TV had.

Enter Oprah's Book Club 2.0 that she started this year. Her newest Book Club thoroughly incorporates technology and social media to facilitate interaction among readers.

• The ebook versions of her selections include exclusive content, including Oprah's personal notes highlighted within the text. 

• Readers can follow @OprahsBookClub on Twitter and join in conversations with #OprahsBookClub. 

• With a virtual book club feature, friends can connect on GroupMe and can also discuss the book at Goodreads.

This ain't your Mama's book club. It's evolved, and all are invited.
Is she still selling books? Hell yeah, she is.

She announced her first pick, Cheryl Strayed's memoir, Wild, last May. It has sold around 500,000 copies. 

I might add, Wild made my Top Ten list in March.

This week Oprah announced her second pick, debut novel The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis. Another title that made it onto one of my Top Ten lists in September. Twelve Tribes was not scheduled for publication until January 2013, but if anybody can bump up a publication date, it's Oprah Winfrey. So the first edition of this book will carry the Oprah's Book Club 2.0 seal.

Oprah Announces Her Second Pick for Oprah's Book Club 2.0

This masterful debut novel was so astonishing that Oprah had to share it with the world. Watch to find out what Oprah loved so much about Ayana Mathis' The Twelve Tribes of Hattie.

Learn more about how you can participate in Oprah's Book Club 2.0.

Talk to you soon.

Happy reading,

Angela

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Beach Reads

 

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Following is a booklist of ten fantastic books set on the beach. So even if you don't have a chance for a vacation yet, grab your flip-flops and transport yourself to one of these beachy locales.

1. On the Island by Tracy Garvis Graves

When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family's summer rental in the Maldives, she accepts without hesitation; a working vacation on a tropical island trumps the library any day.

T.J. Callahan has no desire to leave town, not that anyone asked him. He's almost seventeen and if having cancer wasn't bad enough, now he has to spend his first summer in remission with his family - and a stack of overdue assignments - instead of his friends.

Anna and T.J. are en route to join T.J.'s family in the Maldives when the pilot of their seaplane suffers a fatal heart attack and crash-lands in the Indian Ocean. Adrift in shark-infested waters, their life jackets keep them afloat until they make it to the shore of an uninhabited island. Now Anna and T.J. just want to survive and they must work together to obtain water, food, fire, and shelter. Their basic needs might be met but as the days turn to weeks, and then months, the castaways encounter plenty of other obstacles, including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the possibility that T.J.'s cancer could return. As T.J. celebrates yet another birthday on the island, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man. 

2.  Summer of Firefly Memories by Joan Gable

While the memory might fade, the fact is that some things never change. Truly haunting and powerfully crafted, Summer of Firefly Memories by newcomer Joan Gable rekindles the soul and ignites the passion of hope and longing. Fiercely independent, eco-journalist Samantha McGreggor has exposed some of the twenty-first century’s most alarming environmental enemies and calamities, but lately she has felt uninspired, disillusioned, and nearly apathetic. In hopes of getting her life back on track and awakening her old enthusiasm, she sets off for a summer retreat at the rustic lake resort she hasn’t visited since her parents’ deaths over twenty years ago. In a formidable, thoughtful, lively prose, the author examines the strength of a family’s love and the power of their memory.

3.  Beach Trip by Cathy Holton

Mel, Sara, Annie, and Lola have traveled diverse paths since their years together at a small Southern liberal arts college during the early 1980s. Mel, a mystery writer living in New York, is grappling with the aftermath of two failed marriages and a stalled writing career. Sara, an Atlanta attorney, struggles with her own slowly unraveling marriage. Annie, a successful Nashville businesswoman married to her childhood sweetheart, can’t seem to leave behind the regrets of her youth. And sweet-tempered Lola whiles away her hours—and her husband’s money—on little pills that keep her happy.

Now the friends, all in their forties, converge on Lola’s lavish North Carolina beach house in an attempt to relive the carefree days of their college years. But as the week wears on and each woman’s hidden story is gradually revealed, these four friends learn that they must inevitably confront their shared past, and a secret that threatens to change their bond, and their lives, forever.

4. Husbands May Come and Go but Friends are Forever by Judith Marshall

The story takes place in Northern California, in the spring of 2000, when the dot-com boom was at its peak. Elizabeth Reilly-Hayden is a successful executive in her late fifties and a divorced mother of two. Emotionally armored and living alone, she wants only to maintain the status quo: her long-term significant other, her job, and her trusted friends-five feisty women whose high school friendship has carried them through multiple marriages, dramatic divorces, and maddening menopause. Yet in a matter of days, the three anchors that have kept her moored are ripped away. The group of lifelong pals gathers at Lake Tahoe to attend to the funeral arrangements of their beloved friend and tries to unravel the mystery of her death. Through their shared tragedy, Elizabeth learns how disappointment and grief can bloom into healing and hope.

5. On the Line by Jackie Nastri Bardenwerper

Sixteen-year-old Piper Wesley has always been better at hooking fish than guys. But with her best friend Benny by her side, she’s never minded. And besides, her fishing skills have made her a celebrity in her hometown of Islamorada, an island paradise in the Florida Keys. So when a slump in tourism threatens to sink her family’s fishing charter business, Piper recruits Benny to help her win a major fishing tournament and the $25,000 grand prize. It seems like a perfect plan. Put her skills to use, win some money and help her parents weather the storm. Except that now Benny cares more about hanging out with his girlfriend Marina than helping Piper. And he keeps disappearing, usually after something suspicious happens on the island. Add in Logan, a Michigan transplant with a growing interest in something other than Piper’s fishing, and it looks like practicing for the tournament will be anything but easy. Leaving Piper to wonder how she'll win. And who will be there when it’s over.

6. Shattered Shell by Brendan DuBois

This is the third book in the Lewis Cole Mystery series by DuBois. They are all set on the beach.

Ex-Department of Defense research analyst Lewis Cole is a man with a dangerous past. But in the small New England town of Tyler Beach, New Hampshire, he lives a quiet, unassuming life as a columnist for a Boston-based newspaper. In his third adventure, what promises to be another beautiful and peaceful New England winter for Lewis quickly turns into a nightmare from which he cannot escape. An arsonist is at work in the resort town, methodically burning down its unoccupied hotels and motels--and the police are baffled.
At the same time, another monstrous act of violence shocks the tiny town. When a close friend of Lewis's is severely beaten and then raped, barely escaping with her life, Lewis's unquenchable thirst for justice is re-ignited. Using all of his old connections, including Boston mob-connected "security consultant" and friend Felix Tinios, Lewis begins his own frantic search to find the identity of both the arsonist and the rapist.
Lewis knows that he and the other residents of Tyler Beach face extreme danger. What he doesn't know is that in his small hometown an indescribable evil lurks and even flourishes, destined to leave its shattering mark on anyone who gets in its way. Brendan DuBois scripts a thriller so finely written and woven with mesmerizing details that its chills ultimately rival those of the coldest and most desolate of New England winters.

7.  Fairy Tale Blues by Tina Welling

On the night of her twenty-sixth wedding anniversary, AnnieLaurie McFall does the unthinkable. Without a word to her husband Jess, she walks out on their celebration dinner and catches a flight to Florida. It’s time for a sabbatical from marriage—and some serious soul-searching. So she sets herself up in the small coastal town of Hibiscus and creates the perfect six-month retreat to reimagine a storybook ending that could actually come true with Jess still her prince. What she discovers along the way is far more surprising, outrageous, and just plain fun than she ever expects.

8. The Lifeguard by Deborah Blumenthal

It's an unsettled summer for Sirena. Back in Texas, her family's splitting apart, but here in Rhode Island, at the cottage of her free-spirited aunt, it's a different world. There are long days at the beach and intriguing encounters with him. Pilot. He's the lifeguard with shamanic skills. He both saves her and makes her feel lost at sea. Sirena explores her obsession with Pilot and discovers his mysterious--almost magical--gifts.

9. Beside a Burning Sea by John Shors

I've written of my adoration of John Shors' writing before, and certainly could not omit Beside a Burning Sea on this list. Check out his Cross Currents for another captivating beach setting.

One moment, the World War II hospital ship Benevolence is patrolling the South Pacific on a mission of mercy—to save wounded American soldiers. The next, Benevolence is split in two by a torpedo, killing almost everyone on board. A small band of survivors, including an injured Japanese soldier and a young American nurse whom he saves from drowning, makes it to the deserted shore of a nearby island.

Akira has suffered five years of bloodshed and horror fighting for the Japanese empire. Now, surrounded by enemies he is supposed to hate, he instead finds solace in their company—and rediscovers his love of poetry. While sharing the mystery and beauty of this passion with Annie, the captivating but tormented woman he rescued, Akira grapples with the pain of his past while helping Annie uncover the promise of her future. Meanwhile, the remaining castaways endure a world not of their making—a world as barbaric as it is beautiful, as hateful as it is loving.

With the blend of epic storytelling and emotional intensity that distinguishes him as a unique talent, John Shors reveals a powerful story of redemption focusing on unlikely lovers, heroes and villains, and war-torn countries—all, in their own ways, fighting to survive.

10. Beach House Memories by Mary Alice Monroe

Autumn brings its own haunting beauty to the sun-soaked beaches and dunes on Isle of Palms, where Olivia “Lovie” Rutledge lives in her beloved Primrose Cottage with her daughter, Cara. Looking back as summer fades, Lovie can remember many island summers, but especially one. . . .
In 1974, America was changing, but Charleston remained eternally the same. Lovie had always done what was expected—marrying the son of a historic Charleston family, Stratton Rutledge, and turning over her fortune and fate to his control. But one thing she steadfastly refuses to relinquish: her family’s old seaside cottage. The precious summers spent on the barrier island are Lovie’s refuge. Here, she can escape with her children from the social expectations of her traditional Southern mother, and her overbearing husband’s ambition and philandering. Here, she indulges her lifelong vocation as a “Turtle Lady,” tending the loggerhead sea turtles that lay their eggs in the warm night sand and then slip back into the sea.
This summer, however, is different. Visiting biologist Russell Bennett arrives on the island to research the loggerheads. What begins as a shared passion for the turtles changes to a love far more passionate and profound than Lovie has ever known—but one that forces her to face the most agonizing decision of her life.
For Charleston’s elite, divorce is an unforgivable scandal, and Stratton’s influence is far-reaching. If Lovie dares to dream beyond a summer affair, she risks losing everything: her reputation, her wealth, even her precious children.
Beach House Memories—a poignant and emotional tale of a strong, passionate woman torn between duty and desire, between the traditions of the old South and the social changes sweeping America—will capture your heart. For Lovie, it is an empowering journey of seasons of self-discovery.

Well, that's all I have for now. What beachy reads do you suggest? I'm all ears.

Have a terrific Tuesday,
Angela
 
 
 
 

Author Spotlight: Donald Ray Pollock

As far as author bios go, Donald Ray Pollock's is pretty interesting. He was born in 1954 and raised in Knockemstiff, Ohio. Already sounds interesting, right? Knockemstiff is a tiny town in southern Ohio that, in the 50's boasted three stores, a bar and a population of about 450 people. Pollock says most of those people were "connected by blood through one godforsaken calamity or another," in his interview with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air. He couldn't wait to leave Knockemstiff. And leave he did. Thirteen miles away, to Chillicothe. He worked in a meatpacking plant, then a papermill for 32 years. Notice no writing yet? At age 45, he quit his job at the mill to go to graduate school. His first book, Knockemstiff, a collection of short stories was published in 2008. 2009 had to be an exciting year for him. He received the 2009 PEN/Robert Bingham Award and the 2009 Devil's Kitchen Award in Prose for his first work. Quite impressive! He also graduated from the MFA program at Ohio State in 2009.
His second novel, The Devil All the Time was published in July of this year.

In The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock has written a novel that marries the twisted intensity of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers with the religious and Gothic over­tones of Flannery O’Connor at her most haunting.
Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of compelling and bizarre characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.” There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill­ers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.  
Donald Ray Pollock braids his plotlines into a taut narrative that will leave readers astonished and deeply moved. With his first novel, he proves himself a master storyteller in the grittiest and most uncompromising American grain.

 

If You Liked The Help by Kathryn Stockett, You Might Like...

 
If you liked The Help by Kathryn Stockett, you might like one of these other works of fiction based on race/class.