Sunday Salon: Book Tours

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! Also visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer, and It's Monday: What Are You Reading? at Book Journey. Also, Mailbox Monday hosted by Rose City Reader this month, and Stacking the Shelves at Tynga's Reviews.

What I definitely have on my reading list for next year are the books I agreed to review for tours in January, almost all through TLC.

Brady Needs a Nightlight - Jan. 8

Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking - Jan. 13

My Mother's Funeral: A Memoir - Jan. 20

A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa - Jan. 22

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey - Jan. 24

Last Train to Paris - Jan. 28

The schedule is a little tight toward the end of January, but I hope to read ahead to avoid a crunch. Curious about the books? Click on the covers for the book details.

Do you have any book tours coming up? 

Book Review: The Love Goddess' Cooking School by Melissa Senate

"Dear Diary:.... After a week of my recipes, they come with different expectations than a scotch and a newspaper. They come home kinder. Peering into the mysterious pots on the stove. Sniffing the air and smiling."(Camilla Constantina's diary, ch. 5)

Broken hearted after a failed love affair in California, Holly Maguire is glad to find that her grandmother Camilla has left her a pastry shop and kitchen thousands of miles away in Maine. Holly leaves California, finds friendship in Maine but also competition in work and in love.
Her grandmother, whom she called Nonna, was known as the Love Goddess of Blue Crab Island and was famous for her Italian cooking, her cooking classes, and her fortune telling. Nonna had told Holly that the right man for her would love eating sa cordula, a traditional but unusual Milanese dish. Many people found the dish unappetizing, but the right man would love it!

Holly has to learn to cook and give cooking lessons at her shop, Camilla's Cucinotta, just as her grandmother used to do. When Holly discovers Nonna's private diary, she realizes her struggles to become a successful cook mirrors what her grandmother went through years before.

Comments: A light but pleasant read about women, food, friendship and love.  Add Italian and Milanese customs, adjusting to a new environment, and a good story.  Recipes and a reader's guide are nice extras at the end of the book.

Title: The Love Goddess' Cooking School: A Novel
Author: Melissa Senate
Published October 26, 2010, Simon & Schuster Gallery Books
Objective rating: 4 out of 5

Book provided for a virtual blog tour by Gallery Publicity of Simon & Schuster, Oct. 28.

Book Tour: Making a Case for Life: A New Definition of Perfection

Making a Case for Life: A New Definition of Perfection
by Stephanie Wincik (Paperback -  2010)

My comments: Ms. Wincik's book makes us aware that there are many valuable reasons for welcoming and accepting the disabled. The children with Down Syndrome, for example, are open, honest, kind, and tolerant, and have qualities that are desirable for us all as human beings. These qualities are more valuable to society than the standards we hold of perfection as being ninety percent that of physical beauty and physical perfection.

An honest and thoughtful book, I recommend it for those who would like a better understanding of Down Syndrome and the place of children with disabilities in our society.

"With only a slight shift in our perception, we can clearly see that the extraordinary individuals dismissed for centuries as 'disabled' actually have a vitally important role to play in the world, and indeed may even hold the key to our positive advancement as a human family." (Book cover)

Thanks to Tracee Gleichner at Pump Up Your Book Promotions for providing a copy of this book for review.

 

Book Review: The 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live

Want to plan a trip to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA in January? How about the Iditarod dog sled races in Alaska next March? And what about the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC, Canada next year?

It wouldn't be that hard to plan, not if you had Robert Tuchman's guide that lists almost everything you would want or need to know - when, where, the  history of each sports event,  records, things to know before you go, and, of course, how to get tickets, find travel packages, dining, airports, and relevant websites.

The 100 sports events are organized by order of importance, popularity? I'm not sure; it's a guess. Here are the first 4 listed.

1. Masters
2.  World Cup
3. Super Bowl
4. Summer Olympics (1012 in London)    

 If you wanted to go to Europe for Wimbledon, the Grand Prix, the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, or even events in Dubai and Hong Kong, all the helpful information is there.

Tuchman also gives you his top 10 cities for hosting a major sporting event. The top 3:
1. Miami, Fla. for the weather, South Beach and "topnotch facilities"
2. Surprise! Indianapolis, Ind.
3. San Antonio, Tx.

A valuable resource for sports fans, for those who can afford the time and expense to travel and buy tickets,
and even for those who just want to read about sports events you really should see live. I'm not a big sports fan but I give the guide four stars!

The 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live: An Insider’s Guide to Creating the Sports Experience of a Lifetime by Robert Tuchman

Thanks Tracee and  BenBella Books for a review copy.

Book Review: The Devlin Diary and Author Interview with Christi Phillips

Christi Phillips of San Francisco, author of "The Devlin Diary," has her blog tour today, June 29, organized by Pocket Books Blog Tour. Christi is also author of "The Rossetti Letter," an historical mystery set in 17th century Venice which has been translated into six other languages.

Welcome, Christi. We're glad to hear more about your second historical mystery, "The Devlin Diary," and its setting in the politics of 17th century England.


Interview

Q: How and why did you choose this particular incident in history - the 1670 secret treaty between the English and French kings - to write a book?

Christi: I knew that The Devlin Diary would be set in England, because Claire Donovan, the main character in the present-day story, has moved to Cambridge to teach at Trinity College. Even before I began the novel, I was pretty sure I wanted to set it during the Restoration. It was such an intriguing time, especially in comparison to the Puritanical decade that preceded it. The Restoration era—which begins in 1660 and ends in 1685, essentially the reign of Charles II—can be thought of as the 1960s of the seventeenth century. Both eras ushered in sweeping social changes, a heightened creativity in the arts and sciences, and greater freedom for women. There was also lots of sex, drinking, drugs, and really, really bad behavior, which makes for great stories.

Then I read about the secret treaty in Antonia Fraser’s remarkable biography of Charles II, Royal Charles, and felt that it had the same sort of dramatic possibilities that the Spanish Conspiracy against Venice had provided for The Rossetti Letter. It was a real event that involved people at the highest levels of government and yet was still somewhat shrouded in mystery, so that I felt comfortable constructing a story that included fictional characters along with the real ones.

Q: I was impressed by the amount of research it took to write the novel. Could you tell us a little about what it required and the time you spent?

Christi: Primarily, it involved reading a great many books. This wasn’t really by choice; there just aren’t many other ways to learn about the seventeenth century. I spent six to eight months reading and outlining the story, then went to London and Cambridge for two weeks to tour the sites I would be writing about.There’s very little of seventeenth-century London left, but I found two small museums that were enormously helpful: The Old Operating Theatre in Southwark, and the Dennis Severs House near Spitalfields Market. At the first, you can learn about early medicine and the apothecary’s art; the second is a recreation of an eighteenth-century house in one of the most historic areas of London. I highly recommend both.

I also went to Trinity College, Cambridge. I was graciously shown around the college, allowed to lunch with the fellows at High Table, and generously provided with insider information about the college, which I share in The Devlin Diary.

Q: This is your second novel. How would you categorize/describe your two novels? Could you tell us about your background and your decision to become a writer ?

Christi: They aren’t easy to categorize, are they? When pressed for time, I call them historical mysteries. While not completely accurate, I think both The Rossetti Letter and The Devlin Diary will appeal to people who like historical fiction and people who like mysteries, so it’s a good working description.

As a child, I loved books and read voraciously (still do). I never really made a decision to be a writer, but by the time I was ten or so, I felt that I was one. So I wrote. Throughout my teens I wrote terrible poetry; in my twenties I wrote bad short stories. I didn’t write anything even remotely decent until I was thirty. I’m almost entirely self-taught. I’ve taken only one writing class, and I’ve never had a mentor. Happily, I had good friends who read what I wrote and commented on it.

I was very fortunate in that my friends were always kind and encouraging (even when, in my opinion, there was little reason to be). Although I don’t think I would have been daunted much by criticism; my need to write was too strong. I simply kept working at it until I got better at it, and could serve as my own best (or worst, depending on the day) critic.

Thanks for the interview, Christi. (See my book review of The Devlin Diary in the post below.)

You can visit Christi Phillips at http://www.christi-phillips.com

Book Review: The Devlin Diary by Christi Phillips

Book Review
I gave five stars to this wonderfully interesting historical mystery written by Christi Phillips, whose blog tour will be June 29, sponsored by Sarah Reidy of Pocket Book Blog Tours.

Background of the novel
In 1672 London, Hannah Devlin continues her father's profession of treating and healing the sick, even though women physicians are frowned on in those days and not sanctioned by the Royal College of Physicians. Her life changes when she is summoned to court to secretly treat the king's mistress, Louise de Keroualle.

Plot summary
Hannah keeps a coded diary of the strange and devious events that she witnesses and discovers while she is there. Her diary reveals secrets that involve Charles Stuart, the king, and his beloved sister, Princess Henriette-Anne. It is rumored that Henriette-Anne died in extreme pain, poisoned by her husband, the Duc d'Orleans, brother of King Louis XIV of France, or by his lover. If this is true, why has King Charles remained totally silent on this issue?

Claire Donovan, a visiting lecturer in history at Trinity College, Cambridge in 2008 tries to find the 17th century diary and the answers. However, Claire is not the only one interested in the diary. And at least one other person in 2008 is desperate enough to want to kill to suppress the information in the Devlin diary.

My Comments
I enjoyed the skillful storytelling and plot - royal intrigue and realistic characters from 17th century London, and from Cambridge, England in 2008. I was impressed by the double story line, of Hannah in the 1670s and Claire in 2008 -and how their separate stories were interwoven into a seamless plot. History and mystery, plus women's rights in academia and in the world of science - these themes and topics grabbed and held my interest.

Book provided by the publisher, for my objective review.


Author Interview: See Interview with Christi Phillips

Blog Tour: J. P. Daly, romance novelist

Welcome to Jennifer P. Daly, author of Black Hole: A Novel, a romance published in 2008.

"Jenna" is here on the sixth stop of her book tour to tell us about her novel, a book about a stay-at-home mom whose life changes when her husband mysteriously disappears on a trip overseas.

The author has a B.S. in written communications, works for a software company, and has two young sons. Black Hole: A Novel was written on a dare and begun in 2007. Jenna has also written children's stories.

Interview

Q: Can you tell us how you chose the title of your novel?

Jenna: The title originally was "Unexpected." But as I wrote I realized that black hole references kept coming up. One of her sons was fascinated by them, and her life drops into an emotional one. It clicked. There are so many things science does not know about them - that cannot be explained - yet.

Q: Did you use personal experience to write the novel - about a stay-at-home mom who has to return to the workplace?

Jenna: I was out of the workforce for 2.5 years with my younger son, so, although my experience was shorter than the character in the book, yes. I remember coming to work the first day in 2005 and wondering, "Can I do this," and thinking someone was going to find out I was some sort of big fat faker. It never happened.

After a month, juggling the kids and a career felt oddly familiar (I had done it from 1999-2002 with one child). I had intended to go back when my son was three. My brain needed more stimulation than I got as a full-time mom and I had always worked. I intensely disliked feeling dependent on anyone, even for that short time.

Q: Do you plan to write another book with Allison as the main character?

Jenna: No, Allison's story is "done." The sequel is about another character in Black Hole: A Novel. I realized halfway into it, I had a sequel and wrote the first chapter of the second book while working on the first one! The sequel has no title yet, and I am about 100 pages into it. The beginning and ending are finished. That's the same way I wrote the first one - and then I filled in the middle.

The only way to explain how I write is I get entire chapters in my head, sometimes out of order. I write them, and then figure out where they go.

Q: What is your favorite genre of books?

Jenna: Genre can be a bit limiting. I have never liked mysteries. Which is odd since I like movies like that. I remember reading a few mystery books that had so many characters I could not keep them straight, I had to back up and re-read sections. That can be frustrating.

If I had to, I'd say contemporary fiction (rather than historical, fantasy, etc) and self help. Genre does not really matter as long as they are stories in which a character discovers something about themselves, someone else, or the world, that changes them forever, yet they also entertain the reader. I finished reading "Broken for You" and "Lucky" and felt like something in me had shifted, in a good way.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

Jenna: Yes. Black Hole: A Novel was an odd experience. I never thought to myself, I think I’ll take a stab at writing a novel and self publish it. Instead, I started it after a friend dared me. When I complained about my job being to restricting writing-wise, she insisted I could write about anything. I told her my creative skills had died when I took on corporate copy writing. "Okay," she said, "Write two pages about a woman in an elevator." I did in less than 15 minutes. She read them, handed them back, and asked with a grin, "Then what happened?" 400 pages later…

The oddest part? After the book was done, I realized things in it happened to me, AFTER I wrote about them. I think every time I pick the book up I find another one. That's something I cannot explain.

Please visit my Website at http://www.dalybookstore.com to learn more about me and my book.

Thanks for visiting, Jenna.

Virtual Book Tours, June 28 and 29

June 28: Watch for J.C. Daly, author of Black Hole, who will discuss her first novel, a romance and mystery, here.

June 29: Book tour of The Devlin Dairy by Christi Phillips, with questions and answers by that author and a review, here.