Book Review/Tour and Teaser: You Never Know by Lilian Duval

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

"Calm down," the man says. "No Madoff. Your money is in the best place - Goldman Sachs. They rejected Madoff's fund for all their clients. Safer than Uncle Sam. I told you that you'd be in good hands." (ch. 17)

Title: You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, an Accidental Lottery Winner
Author: Lilian Duval
Paperback, 354 pages
Published January 1st 2011 by Wheatmark
Objective rating: 4/5

Comments: I was afraid this story about a lottery winner would end badly, as many stories on TV and in the news have often reported about lottery winners. I was afraid that there would be unbelievable loss, grief, tragedy, even death. Imagine my pleasant surprise when the very worst doesn't happen, although there are strains along the way for Tobias and his wife and daughter. There are even threats of divorce and bankruptcy, and actual threats of harm to the family.

The book's message seems to be that there doesn't have to be tragedy, however, for someone who has accidentally and suddenly become fabulously wealthy, as long as there is generosity and compassion, friendship, love of family, and a good shoulder on one's head.  Overall, a very pleasant and surprising book to read on this subject.

Goodreads book description: Tobias Hillyer had a promising future until a car accident claimed the lives of his parents. Abandoning his dreams, he dropped out of college to take care of his orphaned, brain-damaged younger brother. Now in his late thirties, Tobias must struggle to provide for his family, working dead-end jobs that fall far short of the academic career he had imagined.

Then he wins the lottery.

His financial worries eliminated, Tobias anticipates nothing but smooth sailing ahead for himself and the people he loves. But he soon finds that his amazing stroke of luck may threaten everything he holds dear. Over peaks and valleys, this uplifting journey will challenge everything we think we know about luck, life, and what we value most.

About the Author:
Lilian Duval is the author of the forthcoming story collection Random Acts of Kindness. She is an amateur classical guitarist and a survivor of the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Lilian and her husband live in Ridgewood, New Jersey.

A copy of this book was provided for review by Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tours.

It's Monday: What Are You Reading?

Join Book Journey for a weekly look at what others are reading this week. Then sign up on her linky to list your reads. Here's what's on my list:

The House of the Wind by Tatiana Hardie, Headline Review

Breakthrough: the 5 Living Principles to Defeat Stress, Look Great, & Find Total Well-Being by Shea Vaughn, Health Communications, Inc.

The Night Eternal by Guillermo del Toro, William Morrow.
The Alphabet of Vietnam by Jonathan Chamberlain, LibraryThing
The Labyrinth of Terror by Richard P. Wenzel, Brandyland Publishers

What books do you have on your list this week?

Sunday Salon: Not Enough Time....

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

My project to repaint the house, cold weather and winter coming notwithstanding, still stands. Door by door, closet by closet, wall by wall, it is supposed to happen! In the meantime, there are shelves of books to be read, meals to be cooked, a garden to tend before winter sets in. And a new granddaughter expected in a few weeks!

With all the chores, what's a body to do? Write a Sunday Salon and then get a good cup of coffee to finish my Kindle e-book, Little Elvises by Tim Hallinan, a Junior Bender mystery set in LA, a city that spawns good writers, having such good material to work with.

My husband loves horse chestnut trees, especially the one with the beautiful bright coral flowers. He planted two of the seeds in pots outside and two hours later the very active squirrels had sniffed them out and squirreled them away. Broken hearted, my hubby plans to drag me along to the Botanical Garden to see if any more of the seeds are lying under their tree. I am not so enamored of the idea though I'm open to the idea of having a huge horse chestnut in the front yard.

On another note, I did four book reviews last week, a lot for me. I have another tour book to post on Oct. 18, so I had better get cracking.

What have you been reading/doing this past week?

Library Finds: A Memoir, Two Travel Novels, and a Fantasy

Here are a few of the books that caught my eye at the library recently.

Yoga Bitch by Suzanne Morrison, Aug. 16, 2011
What happens when a coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, steak-eating twenty-five-year-old atheist decides it is time to get in touch with her spiritual side? Not what you'd expect... (book description)

I like the idea of yoga althought I don't practice it as often as I could. I've read some really good nonfiction books on yoga, though. The title of this one really grabbed my attention.

Cuba: A Novel by Emily Barr, March 2003
The travel bug is very, very contagious, and Cuba is such an exotic destination. It doesn't take long for Maggie to decide that Libby and Dave won't be going alone...(book description) Cuba is on my "someday" list of places to visit.

The Last Chinese Chef: A Novel by Nicole Mones
A novel of friendship, love and cuisine by the author of "Lost in Translation "and "A Cup of Light." Maggie travels to China and discovers a world of food rooted in centuries of history and philosophy. (book description).
Books on the old country and old style Chinese cooking are always interesting to me.

The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern, Sept. 13, 2011
Beyond the smoke and mirrors, a fierce competition is under way - a contest between two young illusionists. As the circus travels around the world, the feats of magic gain fantastical new heights with every stop. (book description).
I've seen so much about this one and good reviews, too, that I thought I should try it.

What books have you found at the library recently?
Check out more book finds at Friday Finds.

Book Review and Tour: Ding Dong the Diva's Dead by Cat Melodia

Title: Ding Dong the Diva's Dead: A Debbie de Lille Murder Mystery
Author: Cat Melodia
Paperback, 246 pages
Published January 30th 2011 by Camel Press
Rating: 3.5/5 
 
My comments: I felt that this murder mystery was written more for opera buffs, opera singers, and opera theater production crews rather than for the general mystery reader. My interest  began to flag by page 80 because of the infinite details of costume, casting, and other production and rehearsal problems with the singers, director, producers, etc. that only a theater cast could fully appreciate. The focus was not squarely on developing the murder mystery plot itself, I thought, although some suspense was injected with the appearance of a "ghost" in Debbie's room, and the tales of a Lady in White who haunts the opera house, and of course much later in the book with the unexplained deaths of cast members.

It seems the writer wanted to write about theater production and the conflicts and jealousies among divas and other members of a cast, as well as write a murder mystery. The book is neither all one or the other. With some stiff editing, it could be more successful as a mystery.
 

About the author: Cat Melodia is the nom de plume of a Seattle-based mezzo soprano and voice teacher. She has a Bachelor’s Degree cum laude in German Literature from Princeton and a Master’s in Music.

A copy of the book was provided for review through Tribune Books Tours.

For other reviews of the novel, visit their Blog Tour web site at http://dingdongdiva.blogspot.com/
For more about Cat Melodia, visit her blog at http://dingdongdiva.camelpress.com/

Book Review: A Rather Remarkable Homecoming by C.A. Belmond

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

"Well, according to the locals, there have been a few sightings of a Woman in White trailing her seaweed-covered wedding gown and veil as she searches for her betrothed along the shores of the sea, like a bride looking for her beloved.'"

"You mean a ghost?" I exclaimed, feeling goose-bumps as I pictured it. Jeremy nodded. (ch. 26)

Title: A Rather Remarkable Homecoming: a Novel by C.A. Belmond
Publisher: NAL Trade; 1 edition (September 6, 2011)
Objective rating: 4.5/5

Comments: A delightful romp through Cornwall and the Cornish coast, through the island of Madeira, and through London. Penny and Jeremy are newlyweds who grew up in Cornwall. They are summoned back to Cornwall to Penny's grandmother Beryl's house, which they must save from being razed by a developer. They try to prove the house is an historic landmark by doing their best to verify a rumor that Shakespeare one stayed there as a member of The Earl's Players. What they eventually uncover is an even bigger surprise.

The two find clues that lead them from Cornwall, back and forth to London, and to Madeira. Celtic legends and rumors of a ghostly lady play a part in the mystery of the house on the Cornish coast. I loved that it's a mystery without murder, as all the characters escape that fate.

I liked the armchair travel experience, the very likable characters in the novel, including the elderly actors in an actor's retirement home in Cornwall, and the excellent writing and storytelling.

A copy of this book was sent to me by New American Library, Penguin Group (USA).

Sunday Salon: What Rules Your Reading?

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There was a modern production of Hamlet on PBS or one of the TV channels the other night - Hamlet in a black suit, his stepfather in royal dress up, and his mother in a long elegant blue gown. Don't you want to watch it, my husband asked. No, I said, it's way too dreary and I've had the classics up to here - I drew an imaginary line on my forehead.

So now I read cozies, mysteries and thrillers, as well as what we call women's fiction, and good travel writing, plus an occasional memoir. I don't really want to re-read 1984, Sense and Sensibility, Macbeth, or Gulliver's Travels. It took me about six months after graduate school to read a book with pleasure again. I was so used to taking a book apart at the seams to analyze it that I couldn't read any book without trying to do the same even though I didn't need to. That was umpteen years ago, however, and I've since overcome that tendency. Some could say I lean towards overly generalizing in my book comments nowadays.

What am I reading right now? A couple of historical novels including

a novel about family, friendship, love, and loss by British writer, Lucinda Riley. The Girl on the Cliff is published by Penguin.

The Time In Between: A Novel is an Atria publication by Maria Duenas, translated from the Spanish. It's about a couturier who becomes an undercove agent for the Allies during WWII.

Postcards from Nam is a novel about Vietnam, told by a fictional Vietnamese lawyer in DC who receives postcards from an unknown person in Thailand, known only by his signature, "Nam." The book is an AmazonEncore publication.

These are a few of the books on my shelves. What have you been reading this past week?