Sunday Salon: Book Giveaway

Welcome to the Sunday Salon. Click on the logo to join in.

I'm enjoying The Language of Flowers, a novel by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. I learnt that one of my favorite flowers, the peony, really meant anger to the Victorians who assigned meanings to flowers. What to do with my box of notecards with those pale pink peonies, and with the yellow roses that mean jealousy, infidelity. Just have to make sure that the people I write to aren't interested in the language of flowers!

Thanks to HarperCollins, I'm giving away three books of Sanctus: the Novel by Simon Toyne. I describe the book as a religious thriller in the style of The DaVinci Code, but even more outrageous! Click here to enter the giveaway, which ends Oct. 4.

What have you been reading this past week?

Book Review: Sanctus by Simon Toyne

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to choose sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.

"So," he said at length, "we have a renegade monk standing on the very summit of the Citadel, forming a deeply provocative symbol, one that has probably already been seen by hundreds of tourists and the Lord only knows who else, and we can neither stop him nor get him back."

"That is correct." Atannasius nodded. "But he cannot talk to anyone while he remains up there, and eventually he must climb down, for where else can he go?" (ch. 10)

Comments: The renegade monk, Brother Samuel, has escaped confinement in the Citadel after balking at the ceremony of the order, where he had witnessed "awful scenes" and learned "terrible secrets." We are later told of the existence of a heretic Bible and an ancient relic called the Sacrament that the Citadel and the order of monks are protecting with their lives. The secrets of the Citadel are jeopardised when Brother Samuel jumps to his death from the top of the mountain, in full view of television media, tourists, and the world.

The book made me think of the DaVinci Code, which had secret groups and secret religious rites. Sanctus seems to take this further, with a new version of religion whose symbol is the sign of the tau.

Described as an "apolacyptic conspiracy thriller", this is a book for those who didn't want The DaVinci Code to end, another book of suspense based on religion.

Title: Sanctus by Simon Toyne
Hardcover, 400 pages
Published March 31st 2011 by HarperCollins
An ARC of the novel was provided by the publisher.