TUSCAN ROSE by Belinda Alexandra

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB; choose sentences from your current read and identify author and title for readers.  First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea.

Title: Tuscan Rose: A Novel by Belinda Alexandra
Published November 19, 2013; Gallery Books
Genre: historical fiction
Source: publisher review copy

First chapter/Prologue:

Florence 1914
The man pauses in a doorway, swaying on his feet, before lunging again along the crooked street in the direction of the river. The distance he has covered across the city leaves him panting. But the fate of the infant he has hidden among the folds of his coat depends on him, and he is terrified that if he does not deliver her to safety, and return before his absence raises suspicion, they will both be lost. 

Teaser:

Signor Lagorio shook his head."This is the end of all Europe. Germany has marched into Poland."
Rosa was in too much pain to take in anything more. (ch. 17)

Publisher book description:

"FLORENCE, 1914. A mysterious stranger known as The Wolf leaves an infant with the sisters of Santo Spirito. A tiny silver key hidden in her wrappings is the one clue to the child’s identity.
FIFTEEN YEARS LATER, young Rosa must leave the nuns, her only family, and become governess to the daughter of an aristocrat and his strange, frightening wife. Their house is elegant but cursed, and Rosa—blessed with gifts beyond her considerable musical talents—is torn between her desire to know the truth and her fear of its repercussions. All the while, the hand of Fascism curls around beautiful Italy, and no citizen is safe. Rosa faces unimaginable hardship: her only weapons her intelligence, intuition, and determination . . . and her extraordinary capacity for love."

Based on the opening paragraph and the teaser, would you read on?

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? 

The Yoga Face; and The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs

I didn't intend to buy this book when I went to the health section of the bookstore recently. I had another book in mind, which they didn't have. So I walked away with this one instead, looked it over while sipping hot chocolate, and landed up buying it as an early Xmas gift to myself.

The Yoga Face describes itself as "a new and completely natural alternative anti-aging regimen that women can do anytime and anywhere-and in just minutes." Who could resist that? I am taking notes so that I can get this facial exercise regimen down pat and do it in "just minutes."

Mylie Cyrus AMA 2013 Performance courtesy of Bing Images

Besides pouting, throwing kisses to the ceiling, grimacing, sticking your tongue out a la Mylie Cyrus, and pressing on creases that may have formed on your face to smooth them out, there are exercises to firm the muscles around the lips, etc.The book also describes the poses that will bring oxygen to the face - the standard yoga postures you would do in a regular class while seated, standing, or lying down.

So now I grimace, stick my tongue out, and hum out loud - when I'm alone, of course.

Another book I couldn't resist was one I bought as a gift for a relative who is dog lover and owner of two rescue dogs -both pit bulls.

The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs  is "illustrated in full color, features articles, fiction, humor, poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and drawings from the magazine’s archives." There are articles on dogs by the likes of E.B. White, Arthur Miller, John Updike, and a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell. I would love to keep this book for myself! By the way, it's a hardcover that is 416 pages and almost the size of a coffee-table book.

What have you bought as gifts for yourself or for someone else?

Book Review: Death of a Nightingale by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis

Title: Death of a Nightingale: A Nina Borg Novel by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnee Friis
Published November 5, 2013; Soho Crime
Genre: Scandinavian crime fiction
Objective rating: 4.5/5

"But not everyone looked at Oxana and Olga with such adoration. Some eyes were lowered when they turned around in the schoolroom. Whispering would suddenly cease when they walked by and later start up again behind their backs." (Ukraine, 1934), p. 143

Two young girls, Oxana and Olga, live under Stalin's socialist rule in the Ukraine in the 1930s. One joins the party and becomes unpopular when the authorities begin to question and arrest people about breaking rules and hoarding food during a time of famine. Oxana is suspected of being the nightingale - the one that "sings".

The most obvious reason, of course, was that she took off and left the country with her daughter a few hours after she had been questioned. But there were other suspicious circumstances as well. Even though her husband had disappeared four days before he was found, the hadn't reported him missing." (present day, p. 70)

In present day Denmark, Natasha is wanted by the  police for the death of her husband. She is desperate to retrieve her young daughter from the Danish authorities and to escape with her from the country. Dansh Red Cross nurse Nina Borg is concerned about the safety of mother and child.

What do these two stories have to do with each other - sisters in 1930s Ukraine and a Ukranian mother and daughter in modern day Denmark?  There are surprises and twists in the novel as the two plots slowly mesh together into a tale of old betrayal and modern day revenge. I loved this crime fiction, as much as I liked the authors' first book, Boy in the Suitcase. A terrific story of how the past can continue on and spread its tentacles into the future.

Publisher's description:
"Nina. Natasha. Olga. Three women united by one terrifying secret. But only one of them has killed to keep it. Natasha Doroshenko, a Ukrainian woman who has been convicted of the attempted murder of her Danish fiancé, escapes police custody. That night, the body of Michael, the ex-fiancé, is found in a car, and the manhunt for Natasha escalates.

Danish Red Cross nurse Nina Borg has been following Natasha's case for several years now, since Natasha first took refuge at a crisis center where Nina works. Nina just can't see the young Ukrainian mother as a vicious killer. But in her effort to discover the truth, Nina realizes there is much she didn't know about this woman and her past. The mystery has long and bloody roots, going back to a terrible famine that devastated Stalinist Ukraine in 1934, when a ten-year-old girl with the voice of a nightingale sang her family into shallow graves."

Have you read any in the Nina Borg series?

Thanks to Soho for a review copy of this book.

Also submitted to Saturday Review of Books on semicolon's blog. 

A Beautiful Wedding by Jamie McGuire

Teaser Tuesdays  is hosted by MizB; choose sentences from your current read and identify author and title for readers.  First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea.

Title: A Beautiful Wedding: A Beautiful Disaster Novella by Jamie McGuire
Published December 10, 2013; Atria Books
Genre: romance novella

First paragraph:

Abby: I could feel it coming: a growing, persistent unease that crept just below my skin. The more I tried to ignore it, the more unbearable it became: an itch that needed to be scratched, a scream bubbling to the surface. My father said the urgent need to run when things were about to go wrong was like a tic, a defense mechanism inherent in the Abernathys. I'd felt it moments before the fire, and I was feeling it now. 

Teaser (ch.9):

My phone buzzed in my purse. I checked it quickly.

Cops just left. Dad's @ Tim's but I told them you guys were in Vegas getting married. I think they f---ing bought it.

Publisher description:
Everything about Abby and Travis’s elopement was top-secret . . . until now. Fans of Beautiful Disaster and Walking Disaster will get all of their questions answered in this whirlwind tale of the wedding day (and night!).

Would you keep reading?

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book for review/feature.

Sunday Salon: Winter Reading

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.

I downloaded books for the first time on Edelweiss, thanks to an offer by William Morrow for the following e-galleys for review:

Tiger Shrimp Tango by Tim Dorsey. a mystery/thriller set in Florida.

A Garden of Marvels: How We Discovered That Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants by Ruth Kassinger, a history of the first botanists and info on the plants of today.

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore, a "satiric Venetian gothic"
That Old Black Magic by Mary Jane Clark, Wedding Cake Mystery #4

I'd much rather have paper books in my hot little hands and will take print any day over e-books, but I am going to do my darn est to read these before they disappear from my computer. I only have them for 45, 52, 80, or 136 days, depending on the release date of the books.

I also found myself reading several books at a time, vowing to finish them all:

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan, Chinese-American fiction, a book from my shelves

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett, memoir and essay writing
Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith, spy thriller
Paws for Murder by Annie Knox, cozy mystery that I'm quite enjoying
I worry that I have Book-ADD (a term I made up) and am too easily distracted by a new book while I'm already reading one.

Review books and AREs (advance reader's editions) that came recently?

The Altarpiece (The Cross and the Crown Series, Book One) by Sarah Kennedy- an imagined h8istory of what might have happened to all the nuns after Henry VIII took over the church in England in the 16th Century.

The Last Train to Paris by Michele Zackheim, a romance, murder mystery, and suspense - historical novel set in Paris just before WWII

Children of the Revolution (Inspector Banks Novel #21) by Peter Robinson, police procedural and crime thriller

This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash, fiction

What I bought for myself, on Kindle:

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Berg, historical novel involving a family of botanists.

What's on your winter reading list? Keep warm!

Until My Soul Gets It Right by Karen Wojcik Berner

Title: Until My Soul Gets It Right: The Bibliophiles, Book Two
Author: Karen Wojcik Berner
Published May 23, 2012; Kindle and paperback
Genre: women's fiction

"Hey, Catherine," Scott said loudly enough for everyone to hear as he followed her into the living room. "I hope we can put aside any past animosity and be friends." He lowered his voice. "And you are going to play along, aren't you? ..."

My comments: 
Catherine Elbert is dissatisfied with her small Wisconsin farming town, her family, and her circumscribed life there, and leaves after high school for Portland, Maine, to spread her wings and find independence.
Her mistakes and deceptions along the way, from Maine to San Diego and back to the Midwest, and her attitudes make her a main character one may not like. But is she heading in a direction of self-realization?

Publisher description:
 From the author of  A Whisper to a Scream comes a story about growing up, making peace with your past, and finding love along the way. Catherine has never been good at making decisions, whether it was choosing an ice cream flavor as a small child, or figuring out what she wanted to be when she grew up. The only thing Catherine knew for sure was there had to be more to life than being stuck on her family’s farm in Wisconsin. While watching a PBS travel show, Catherine becomes entranced by Portland, Maine. The ocean. The lobsters. The rugged coast. Nothing could be more different from the flat, nondescript farmlands of Burkesville.

Despite her parents threatening to disown her and her brothers taking bets on how many days until she comes home, Catherine settles on Peaks Island, off the coast of Portland. She was finally free. Or so she thought...

About the series: 
A suburban classics book club, members also reveal their personal stories. Includes Reader's Guide with book club discussion questions. Until My Soul Gets It Right is a 2013 Readers’ Choice Award Nominee by BigAl’s Books & Pals

Thanks to the author for a review copy of this book.