Poetic Book Tour of DOLL GOD by Luanne Castle

Blog tour of Doll God by Luanne Castle, poetry published January 10, 2015 by Aldrich Press. Tour by Poetic Book Tours hosted by Serena at Savvy Verse and Wit.

The poems show the artist's feelings and observations. Many themes are related to sewing, seamstresses, dolls loved and played with, then disparate, ruined, desecrated. Beauty torn apart.

Like me this doll is studious
with thick legs,
has been a victim of potients
and infatuated with love,
though tenderness has nestled close to danger.
I look closely to confirm she's been martyred. (p. 20)

In another poem, an artist pauses in his work, faced with the real thing of beauty - in "Caught," page 15. The first few verses of the poem below:

Perched on the rail 

of the garage door 

the hummingbird stares 

at the ceiling, 

waits for it to part.

          The painter wants to catch her.  

He lays down his brush.

          Neither does their work 

and the sounds 

of the schoolchildren

and the traffic 

grind down 

to nothing. 

I loved the artist confronted with nature that she enjoys more than her own work.

Do read this small book of poetry and see how you may be moved by both similar and different images in the variety of poems.

Tour Stops:
Feb. 9: Patricia’s Wisdom (review)
Feb. 10: Everything Distils Into Reading (review)
Feb. 13: Bell, Book & Candle (review)
Feb. 14: Book Dilettante (review)
Feb. 19: Peeking Between the Pages (Author Guest Post)
Feb. 20: Peeking Between the Pages (review)
Feb. 22: Regular Rumination (review)
Feb. 23:  A Garden Carried in the Pocket (review)
Feb. 24: Bookgirl’s Nightstand (review)
March 1: Tea Leaves (review)
March 4: Diary of an Eccentric (review)
March 6: Savvy Verse & Wit (review)

About the Poet:

Luanne Castle has been a Fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside; Western Michigan University; and Stanford University. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in Barnstorm Journal, Grist, The Antigonish Review, Ducts, TAB, River Teeth, Lunch Ticket, Wisconsin Review, The MacGuffin, and other journals. She contributed to Twice-Told Children’s Tales: The Influence of Childhood Reading on Writers for Adults, edited by Betty Greenway. Luanne divides her time between California and Arizona, where she shares land with a herd of javelina.

Thanks to Poetic Book Tours and the author for a review copy of the book.

Book Tour: The Monster That Ate My Socks by A.J. Cosmo

The Monster That Ate My Socks by A.J. Cosmo, Thought Bubble Publishing, third edition.

Young kids with big imaginations will love this story of the socks eating monster who gobbled those missing socks. And the solution to having the sock monsters not starve while leaving the socks alone? Brilliant.

Kids will love this book and the entire monster series.

Book Synopsis:

A young boy, who is about to be grounded for going through so many socks, discovers that a monster has been eating them.

Max is a young boy who is constantly getting in trouble for his socks disappearing. He doesn’t know where they go, but he does know that if he doesn’t do something quickly his mom will ground him for summer. Max soon discovers that a little green monster is sneaking into his room at night and eating his sweaty socks. His mother, of course, doesn't believe him, so Max calls on his best friend to come for a sleepover to catch the monster.

They devise a trap and capture the monster only to learn that the creature can speak. It hasn’t meant to cause any harm, it's just trying to feed its family. The monster shows them his home and his three little children and begs the boys not to turn them over to the adults. Adults, he says, want to destroy monsters.

The boys are left in a pickle. Allow the monsters to be and get grounded, or turn the monsters in knowing what will happen to them? Neither idea seems good, so they come up with a new plan!

Author's Bio:

A.J. Cosmo's stories are crafted to help parents teach their children simple everyday lessons in an easy to understand manner. By artfully marrying beautiful illustrations and language, children are challenged to explore his magical worlds. Written for the transitional reader, A.J.'s stories allow your child to develop and master a new level of reading.

Connect with A.J.:  Website  ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter

Visit the iRead Book Tour schedule with reviews and giveaways:

Feb 9 -  One Frugal Girl - review / giveaway
Feb 9 -  Rockin' Book Reviews - review / author interview / giveaway
Feb 10 - Library of Clean Reads - review / giveaway
Feb 10 - Bookroom Reviews - review / author interview / giveaway
Feb 10 - Hello, my name is Alice - review / author interview
Feb 11 - Book Dilettante - review 
Feb 11 - Back Porchervations - review
Feb 12 - Nighttime Reading Center - review / author interview / giveaway
Feb 12 - Book Loving Hippo - review / guest post / giveaway
Feb 13 - Working Mommy Journal - review / giveaway
Feb 16 - Life as Leels - review / author interview / giveaway
Feb 16 - Genuine Jenn - review / giveaway
Feb 17 - Reading Authors - review / giveaway
Feb 17 - Bound 4 Escape - review
Feb 18 - Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks - review
Feb 18 - Deal Sharing Aunt - review
Feb 19 - Walking with Nora - review / giveaway
Feb 19 - Girl With Camera - review / giveaway
Feb 20 - View From the Birdhouse - review / giveaway
Feb 20 - Being Tilly's Mummy - review / giveaway
Feb 23 - Just One More Chapter - review
Feb 23 - Kincavel Korner - review
Feb 24 - Pinky's Favorite Reads - book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Feb 25 - fuonlyknew - review / giveaway
Feb 26 - Did YOU Hear About the Morgans? - review 
Feb 27 - DeDa Studios - review / author interview / giveaway
March 2 - Christy's Cozy Corners - review / giveaway
March 3 - Life with Katie - review / giveaway
March 4 - 3 Partners in Shopping - review / giveaway
March 6 - I'd Rather Be At the Beach - review / giveaway

Thanks to iRead Book Tours and the author for a review copy of this book.

First Chapter: JOHN THE PUPIL by David Flusfeder

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme.

John the Pupil by David Flusfeder, to be released March 3, 2015; Harper. 
Genre: historical novel

First chapter, first paragraph:

...and see your face on the roof of the friary. Sometimes you would cast your eye down at us and we would scatter. More often, the face would disappear as if it had never been there at all, as if you were something we had conjured to frighten ourselves with. He was a prisoner, it was said, convicted of monstrous crimes. He was mad, he fed on the flesh of children, he wiped his mouth with his beard after he had done feasting. He was in league with the Devil, he was the Devil, performing unnatural investigations. Sometimes we would hear inexplicable thunder from the tower, a few claimed to have seen lightning on clear sunny days. Once, I myself,grazing my father's goats, I was touched by a rainbow, slowly turning, painting the field with brief marvellous colour.

As I got older, I would go there less often. The grass grew higher by that part of the Franciscans' wall. Strange flowers bloomed. Animals refused to graze there.

This novel is described as "...recounting the journey taken from Oxford to Viterbo in 1267 by John and his two companions, at the behest of the friar and magus Roger Bacon, carrying a secret burden to His Holiness Clement IV."

What do you think: Would you read on?

Book Review: THE BOOKSELLER by Cynthia Swanson

The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson, to be published March 3, 2015; Harper Collins Genre: women's fiction

Kitty the bookseller wakes up one morning in another world, one in which she is married with children and living in a bigger home than her present one, in a nicer neighborhood and with a loving architect husband.

Every time she goes to sleep, Kitty enters this strange world where she is known as the married Katharyn, her more formal birth name. Each time she wakes up from her dream, she is once again Kitty, the single owner of a small bookstore in Denver, which she operates with her best friend. Frieda. 

Kitty becomes conflicted between her two lives, both of which seem very real when she is inhabiting them. Which one will she choose in the end, and can she really choose? I was persuaded by her dilemma to read the book to the very end. It was an enjoyable adventure. 

An entertaining story and premise, with likable and believable characters showing us the power of our dreams and wishful thinking and how they can help us resolve inner conflicts. Kitty and her alter ego Katharyn are both intriguing. Get ready for a surprise ending.
Objective rating: 4.5/5

Thanks to Harper Collins for a proof of this book for review. 

Sunday Salon, New Books: My Father's Wives; and A Memory of Violets

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday: What Are You Reading hosted by Book Journey, and Mailbox Monday.

My Father's Wives: A Novel by Mike Greenberg arrived from William Morrow Books for review. It's a January 2015 publication.

The story of one man's search to understand himself, his marriage, and his father. On this quest for understanding—about himself, about manhood, about marriage—Jonathan decides to track down his father’s five ex-wives. His journey will take him from cosmopolitan cities to the mile-high mountains to a tropical island—and ultimately back to confront the one thing Jonathan has that his father never did: home. 

 A Memory of Violets: A Novel of London's Flower Sellers by Hazel Gaynor was published February 3, 1015 by William Morrow.

In 1912, twenty-year-old Tilly Harper leaves her native Lake District for London, to become assistant housemother at Mr. Shaw’s Home for Watercress and Flower Girls. For years, the home has cared for London’s flower girls—orphaned and crippled children living on the grimy streets and selling posies of violets and watercress to survive. 

Tilly discovers a diary written by an orphan named Florrie—a young Irish flower girl who died of a broken heart after she and her sister, Rosie, were separated. Tilly sets out to discover what happened to Rosie. But the search will not be easy. Full of twists and surprises, it leads the young woman into unexpected places, including the depths of her own heart.

Looking forward to reading them both. What's on your reading list this week?

Book Beginnings: TRIGGER WARNING by Neil Gaiman

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.

Trigger Warning: Short Fiction and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman
Published February 3, 2015 William Morrow
Genre: poetry, short stories

Book beginning:

Introduction
I. Little Triggers 

There are things that upset us. That's not quite what we're talking about here, though. I'm thinking rather about those images or words or ideas that drop like trapdoors beneath us, thrown us out of our safe, sane world into a place much more dark and less welcoming.Our hearts skip a ratatat drumbeat in our chests, and we fight for breath. Blood retreats from our faces and our fingers leaving us pale and gasping and shocked.  

And what we learn about ourselves in those moments, where the trigger has been squeezed, is this: the past is not dead. 

page 56:

I said, "There are many for whom the lure of gold outweighs the beauty of a rainbow."
"Me, when young, for one. You, now, for another."

Book description:

"Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction--stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013--as well "Black Dog," a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.
Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion." (publisher)

My comments: The basis of the book seems to rest on the idea that there are little words, incidents, events, or images that can trigger memories in us, welcome or not. Sometimes without warning. Books fall into this category for Gaiman as well as for me, a reader. I am eager to get into his stories and his thoughts written in prose and verse.

Thanks to William Morrow for a review/feature copy of this book. 

First Chapter: MEMORY'S LIE by Jamie Mason

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme.

Monday's Lie by Jamie Mason, published February 3, 2015 by Gallery Books. Genre: thriller.

First paragraph, first chapter:

It's funny what you remember about terrible things.
The scattered shards were far more beautiful than the crystal lamp they'd been an hour before. The clearest night sky had nothing at the foot of the stairs. The industrious back-and-forth of the man's shadow tricked the shimmer into life with his every pass.
If I'm ever a ghost, this will be one place they'll see me - the translucent drenched girl in pajama pants and soggy sweatshirt, hovering and shivering in the foyer. Part of me never left....

Book description:...a new thriller about a woman who digs into her unconventional past to confirm what she suspects: her husband isn't what she thought he was.

Would you continue reading, based on the opening paragraph?