Welcome to another Mailbox Sunday. A post with the books I received/bought the past period. The last few months I didn't blog that much because of my house move and because my health was letting me down. On top of that my laptop crashed ( I almost got electrocuted when I plugged the adapter in..) so I am glad that that all is smoothed out now and I am back at my blog. The last few weeks I received a few books for review..
For Review:
Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum:The blog tour makes a stop on Marjolein Reads in spring 2016, the date will follow soon!
Burning Glass by Kathryn Purdie
The Night We Said Yes by Claire Needell
Dreamololgy by Lucy Keating
E-Galley:The Ramblers by Aidan Donnely Rowley. The US blog tour of The Ramblers makes a stop on my blog on February 10th.
(Special thanks to Penguin Random House International, HarperCollins International, and Little Bird Publicity)
Happy Reading!Marjolein
Publisher: Twenty7 Books
Release Date: Ebook, 5th November 2015
Paperback, 14th July 2016
Pages: 288
Source: received for review
Having suffered in silence since the tragic death of their young daughter, Lola and Duncan Drummond's last chance to rediscover their love for one another lies in an anniversary holiday to the gorgeous Napa Valley.
Unable to talk about what happened, Duncan reaches out to his wife the only way he knows how - he buys her a derelict house, the restoration of which might just restore their relationship.
As Lola works on the house she begins to realise the liberating power of letting go. But just as she begins to open up, Duncan's life begins to fall apart. He is away a lot of times for business and after work he starts meet a woman names Saskia in hotels, and he starts cheating on Lola. Meanwhile, Lola is getting involved with the current owner of the house, Cain McCann, and the same thing that happens with Duncan and Sasia happens to Cain and Lola, without knowing it from each other ofcourse. In the end though, some events happen that starts the uncovering of the secret that both Duncan and Lola are hiding for each other. will they be able to untangle their relationship or will the distance tear them apart?
I enjoyed reading Learning How To Speak American, but I must say I found the pace of the book quite slow at many points and the ending left me with so many question marks as I totally didn't understand it. But speaking for the overall part of the book, I liked it. As a reader I was a little stunned that both Duncan and Lola started cheating on each other as I got the impression they wanted to work to better their relationship beforehand. But as it goes with stories like this, it was entertaining to read. You just know as a reader that at some point in the book it will go wrong and they will be found out by the other, only not when that will happen. I like that in movies and tv series but I also like to read stories like this ones in a while. So yes, I do recommend reading Learning To Speak American and recommend reading it!
Q and A with author Colette Dartford
In writing Learning To Speak American where did you start? Where did you find inspiration for the characters and the story?
I started at the beginning. That sounds a bit simplistic but I am a self-taught writer and Learning To Speak American was my first novel so I took the most obvious route: started at the beginning and wrote my way through the story, scene by scene, chapter by chapter.
The character question is interesting because I’m sure family and friends look for themselves in the characters I write. Truth be told, all my characters are a product of my fertile imagination. I would never base a character on someone close to me – I love them too much.
What were the challenges (literary, research, psychological and logistical) in bringing the book to life?
All of the above - so many challenges!
In literary terms, as I said in the previous answer, I’m self-taught and there were times when I wished I had done and English degree or an MA in creative writing – they would have made the complex task of writing a novel so much easier.
With regard to research, much of Learning To Speak American is set in California’s Napa Valley where I lived and restored a derelict house, much like the fictional Duncan and Lola Drummond. The practicalities don’t appear in the book (far too boring) but the emotional ups and downs most certainly do.
And logistically? Finding the time, space, inspiration and confidence to write 100,000 words that hang together in a way that is interesting enough for other people to want to read them.
What was the timeline from spark to publication, and what were the significant highlights along the way?
Endless – or at least it felt that way. I started Learning To Speak American when I moved to the Napa Valley and entered a first draft in the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Much to my astonishment it went straight to the quarterfinals and got lots of encouraging reviews, which made me take it much more seriously. I worked through many more drafts (#10 finally made it into print) and learned a huge amount along the way. The most significant highlights were finding a writing mentor that I clicked with immediately, being signed by a top literary agent and getting a two-book deal with a major publishing house.
What do you want readers to take away from reading Learning To Speak American?
That even when faced with the most terrible tragedy, the human spirit ultimately gravitates towards hope. It is hope that keeps us going when all else seems lost.
What is your next project?
The Sinners, published by Bonnier in early 2017. The premise is that Only when you lose everything do you find out who you really are. I’m working on the edits at the moment and excited at the prospect of seeing it in print.
Learning to Speak American by Colette Dartford is out now and is £3.99 on Amazon. Click here.
Publisher: MIRA
Release Date: September 10th 2015
Pages: 496
Received from publisher for review
Alex Foster is trying to forget. Trying to forget that night when she was seventeen. That night when her father dragged her younger brother out of The Old Girl river, his lips blue and his body stiff with cold. But it’s impossible to forget a tragedy like that, particularly when you blame yourself.
Then her sister Jaime calls. Their mother is sick, and Alex must return. Suddenly she’s plunged back into the past she’s been trying to escape.
Returning to her hometown, memories of the tragic accident that has haunted her and her family are impossible to ignore. Alex still blames herself for what happened to her brother and it’s soon clear that her father holds her responsible too. As Alex struggles to cope, can she ever escape the ghosts of the past?
Letting You Go is the second book by Anouska Knight I've read, and so far it's not my favorite. I found it pretty difficult to finish this book and to write this review as the confusing story took 500 pages long.I really struggled to stay with this as I felt the story was not going anywhere. I think possibly the book would be a better read if the characters and the plot where more interesting and of the story was a little shorter. Truly wanted to like this book more than I actually did.
Q&A with Anouska Knight
In writing Letting You Go where did you start? Where did you find inspiration for the characters and the story?
The first spark of Letting You Go was an elusive bugger. I’d been trying to come up with something that felt right for ages, and then right before I was due to head down to London for lunch with my editor and agent (to, ahem, present all of my marvellous ideas) finally something bit.
It came while I was trying to get some mid-pregnancy exercise one morning. I’d just dropped my two boys off at their primary school and had headed down to the local stretch of river for a crisp morning walk. Maybe it was being pregnant, or maybe just being a mum in general, but I suppose I felt a bit more wary than usual. It was cold and I was becoming more rotund and not at all streamlined enough to do a dive and rescue mission should the need arise. (I have a habit of over-thinking.)
I remember feeling glad my two monsters were safely at school instead of down by the river with me. Little boys are particularly efficient at getting themselves into sticky situations, Dill and his sticky situation came to me that morning.
The real clincher for me though wasn’t about the awful conclusion of what happened to Dill at the river, but the fallout of his sister Alex’s role in what happened that day. Anyone could make the same mistake Alex did but she got caught out. To be responsible for the death of a loved one would be absolutely horrific, so guilt quickly became Alex’s main source of conflict.
Once the initial bang of Dill’s fate was down on paper though, the other story threads all seemed to ripple out from there. The idea that a momentary lapse or misjudgement can go on to have such huge consequences is a running theme in Letting You Go, with secrets, misunderstandings and a lack of communication exacerbating the poor Foster family’s problems.
What were the challenges (literary, research, psychological and logistical) in bringing the book to life?
My last book A Part Of Me involved a lot of research because the storyline dealt with the process of adoption, plus one of the main characters in there was also an amputee so it was important to get all of the details around those issues as accurate as possible. The only downside to that is it takes a reeeally long time!
Without sounding like a lazy toad, I really wanted Letting You Go to be an emotionally-led novel so research wasn’t such a huge undertaking with this storyline. This was an absolute Godsend because I wrote the majority of the book around my newborn son. (Which was bloody hard work, by the way.)
Writing any book takes a lot of hard graft, but this one was quite a slog because after giving myself a couple of months off, Jesse was just eight weeks old when I slipped back into my writing routine.
I say ‘routine’, but at the time it felt more like an endurance mission. I’d get a little writing done in the daytime but I always find it hard to concentrate then anyway. There are too many distractions with phones and people, and then an utterly mesmerising new baby arrived in the house and it all got a bit mental.
I spent a lot of time just looking at him in the first few months. Then the school run would fly around and I’d want to spend time with my bigger two, Rad and Loch, until their bedtime.
But you can’t put it off forever and despite my publishers being amazingly flexible, I had to knuckle down eventually. There were quite a few months of staying up writing into the early hours, getting up to breastfeed Jesse a few hours after I’d gone to sleep and then getting up for the school run a couple of hours later. You have to be pretty diehard to write books sometimes.
The main literary hurdles I had to deal with in writing Letting You Go though were probably knitting together all of the misunderstandings and crossed wires that are integral to the story. This was the first time I’d really thought about keeping critical truths away from the reader, and then I also had several characters who all had their own misconceptions about the same key situations in the book too, so it was quite challenging at times to try and balance out what information to share with which characters without giving too much away to either them or the reader. Not easy with baby brain, I can tell you! But I think it was exactly those dynamics between the characters, the way they all read situations and saw each other so differently that (hopefully) brought their story to life.
What was the timeline from spark to publication, and what were the significant highlights along the way?
The spark came in February last year, I think… and the first draft went off a little later than planned twelve months later. We managed to have the manuscript chopped down (I’m a habitual waffler… there was a lot of chopping involved) tidied up and heading towards print-worthiness by around May time. I think the publishers needed the following four months to correct all of my spelling errors before Letting You Go’s publication on September 10th, woohoo! (I woohoo almost as much as I waffle, sorry.)
Now I’m three books in, I can definitely say that for me the major highlights always seem to come in the same places. The first feeling that you’re onto something with your plot idea is nothing short of epic. It’s the thrill that makes you forget how strung out the last book had you and tricks you into wanting to do it all again. A bit like snogging and giving birth, if you catch my drift. Apparently we forget the pain of childbirth. Writing books is a lot like that. Hurts like hell but worth it in the end.
Then there’s also the first point in your writing when a character takes you off course and does something you hadn’t foreseen, and you realise that it’s a sort of phenomenon that can only come about once you’ve breathed enough heart and soul into them. Also pretty epic!
But it’s the last few miles that really bring the most reward. To get to the finish line - not the part where everything’s polished, just the first draft completed – and see the hundreds of pages you’ve written knowing the hours it’s all taken, the sleeplessness, and time missed with the kids. It’s a massively rewarding experience. It has to be!
But after all that, the ultimate is seeing the novel positively reviewed. Whether that’s flicking through Hello or Heat or stumbling across it as a recommended read in one of the national papers, it’s all beyond magic. It always floors me when a perfect stranger takes the time to tell me on my Facebook or Twitter feed that they took something good away from reading my characters’ stories. Those moments are all kinds of crazy-ace.
What do you want readers to take away from reading Letting You Go?
Every one of the main characters in this book would have probably done things differently if they’d had their time again. It’s not a story where it all works out seamlessly in the end and everyone’s a better person for it, but they are more open and honest. Letting You Go is about a family dealing with the kinks in its past and the fight to find smoother ground the other side of all that, even after the landscape of that family has changed irrevocably.
The people we love most can be really hard work at times, I know Knighty would tell you I’m a total nightmare to be married to, but there’s nothing more precious than the people around us. We should be kinder to each other while we have the chance, because life is short and none of us get it right all the time.
What is your next project?
Well, my other job today if I can get Jesse to snooze for long enough is to finally get around to typing up all of my plot ideas and whizz them off for my agent to have a nosey at. I’m extremely grateful after Harlequin/Harper Collins recently offered me a book deal for two more titles! Which is amazing! Obviously I nearly yanked their arms off.
I’m really excited about book four because I’m hoping to take a slightly darker direction with this one. There are a few unsavoury characters causing all sorts of unpleasantness with social media providing a pretty toxic platform for revenge and jealousy to play out in the lives of my three female leads. So I’m off! Junior’s still out cold so I should get started!
Thanks so much for letting me gas on, hope you’re still awake!
Anouska x
Letting You Go by Anouska Knight is out now (Mira, £7.99)
Publisher: Sphere, Little Brown Books UKRelease Date: October 22 2015Pages: 384Received from publisher for review
At thirty, Claudia's life is stale and the romance with her long-term boyfriend, Seth, has disappeared. Determined to inject some festive spark back into their love life, Claudia and Seth go on their first date in a very long time. But when the night ends in disaster, Claudia suddenly finds herself facing life - and Christmas - alone.
Life alone is exciting, scary and full of soon-forgotten exercise regimes and ill-advised attempts at crafting sexy underwear. It's also filling up with dates, surprisingly. With best friends Penny and Nick at her side, a surplus of festive markets, mulled wine and Christmas tunes, Claudia attempts to face all this change with gusto. One thing's for certain: this year, Christmas is going to be very different . . .
I enjoyed reading this book! The main character,Claudia, she was a lovely character to read about. She was very funny, a bit messy sometimes. From the beginning you just know that Seth isn't the perfect guy for her, as he was acting like quite a douchebag to her. Her two best friends Penny and Nick where just lovely, the friends you want to have yourself. I really liked that Claudia and Nick started dating, he was acting amazing towards Claudia.
Claudia goes on more dates, not only with Nick, but she realises that she’s got feelings for him, too bad her best friend Penny likes home too… After some misunderstandings and being drunk at a Christmas party, Nick finally tells her how he feels, just then Penny turns up…
I loved how I didn't know what was going to hand and when I thought I finally knew. There was another twist in the tale. There was so much reference to Christmas in the book and the descriptions were perfect, this is something I loved! I was able to transport myself to December in October which I loved. I definatly recommend this book for coming december when you want to get in the festive christmas mood and want to curl up with a cozy read!
Publisher: Crown ArchetypeRelease Date: September 15 2015Pages: 240ISBN:9781101905579Received from publisher for reviewBuy this book at bol.com
Why Not Me by Mindy Kaling is a fun collection of essays about her life, mostly around her work in Hollywood with The Office and The Mindy Project.
She writes about how she started working at the famous series The Office as both an actor and writer and of course about some in's and outs of The Mindy Project One of the most fun parts of the book is when she is invited to a state dinner at The White House, where she even meets The Obama's and about when she sadly wasn't nominated for an Emmy Award.She also describes vividly how she created and worked out the idea for The Mindy Project and how, at firsthand, it seemed her idea for the show got not the interest of the network that she hoped on, but with hard work, how it was suddenly canceled by FOX but landed a new spot at HULU.
She writes about her anxieties because she looks quite different and more ''curved'' than is the standard in Hollywood, where everyone is thin and blonde, it seems that almost everyone in Hollywood uses hair extensions, even the people you don't expect it from. She gives tongue-in-cheek advice for her readers for absolute on-camera-beauty:“Your natural hair color may be appropriate for your skin tone, but this isn’t the land of appropriate–this is Hollywood, baby. Out here, a dark-skinned woman’s traditional hair color is honey blonde.”
With pictures, she gives an illustrated inside look in an average day in her life, which are quite long working days from 5:00 am till 12:30 a.m! I really liked that she chose to use pictures in the book, altough they where small and black and white, they truly added to the book and her writing.
All of her experiences and hilarious anecdotes of her life go from on topic to another, but somehow she creates a nice cohesion between all of them. Mindy Kaling has a very funny style of writing full of humor. You can just imagine everything she writes about in your head. Her observations about the mostly crazy happenings and lifestyle of the showbiz world in Hollywood are at many points hilarious but most of all interesting and entertaining to read, which is why I recommend reading it. (AndI am pretty sure I will check out Mindy's first book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? too because this one left me craving for more!)
Publisher: Aladdin M!X
Release Date: September 29th 2015
Pages: 240
Age Range: Middle Grade
Received from publisher for review
When Sammi finds out that her younger sister Jorgianna is going to skip TWO grades and end up at her school, Sammi makes her sign an agreement that the two won't talk to each other, since Sammi is quite sure Jorgianne will snow her under at school, the way Sammi sees it, Jorgianna is way more popular than her and excells in almost everything as she is pretty smart.
One of Sammi's goals was to get in the group of the most popular girls at school. But when Jorgianna comes to her school, she immediately is accepted into the popular clique, so it's impossible for Sammi to join anymore. More and more, it seems like everything goes wrong for Sammi, but right for Jorgianna, and from sister camaraderie their bond turns into total sister rivalry. But there’s more to each sister’s story than the other realizes. And when the popular girls start to show their true colors to Jorgianna, can these siblings finally put aside their differences and show the queen bees who’s boss?
I am a big fan of the Aladin M!X titles, and I truly enjoyed reading The Sister Solution. As I have an sister myself, I know there can occur some competition sometimes, The plot was fun and the characters of Sammi and Jorgianna where realistic. It has a lot of sister drama but it never got over the top or annoying. Jorgianna was a little obnoxious sometimes and got a little too much into being popular. Sammi started dating Noah which was very cute. Noah was very nice and true boyfriend material At some points I got a little lost in the story because so much was happening all at once. But besides that this is a middle grade read not to miss because this is fun and very entertaining read!
Q&A with author Trudi Trueit Ever since writing and directing her first play in the fourth grade, Trudi Trueit has loved storytelling. In her career, she's been a TV news reporter, PR specialist, freelance writer, and now, children's author. She's published more than 90 fiction and nonfiction titles for kids, from pre-k through teen. Her fiction titles include The Secrets of a Lab Rat series (Aladdin), Stealing Popular (Aladdin M!X) and The Sister Solution (Aladdin M!X). Trudi's married to her college sweetheart, Bill, and lives to serve her cats, Bernadette, Kira, and Pippin.
In writing The Sister Solution where did you start? Where did you find inspiration for the characters and the story? My inspiration for the story and character actually goes all the way back to my childhood! When I was a girl, my favorite books were those with siblings. I loved the sibling relationships portrayed in books like Little Women, Sense & Sensibility, and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. What drew me in was the honesty. The authors didn’t idealize their characters lives. You saw it all, from the petty arguments to the major sacrifices.
I am a younger sister (I have an older sister and a younger brother, which also makes me a middle child). I remember how helpless I felt when my sister would get to do things ahead of me. She was the first to wear make-up, go on a date, and do all those grown-up things that I was desperate to do. The spark for this book came when I thought it might be interesting to put a twist on that idea. What if Jorgianna, the younger sister, got all of the things her older sister, Sammi, wanted and got them first? How would that affect their relationship? And if they were very opposite girls in demeanor and interests, would it drive a wedge between them? Or could they find some common ground? I wasn’t sure how they would do, honestly. I just put them at opposite ends of the spectrum, started writing, and prayed they’d find their way.
What were the challenges (literary, research, psychological and logistical) in bringing the book to life?
Originally, I had planned to write the story from Sammi’s (the older sister’s) point of view in first person. As a younger sister, I already knew how Jorgianna felt, so I wanted to focus on Sammi’s crumbling world as she learned her baby sister was going to be skipping two grades to join her in middle school. But I didn’t get more than a few chapters in when I felt something wasn’t right. It was almost as if Jorgianna, who is pretty feisty and outspoken anyway, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, don’t you want to hear my side of the story?” So I started again, this time writing the book in alternating points of view. I was definitely nervous about it, though, because it’s the first time I’ve alternated narrators in a book. It was a risk. It was important that each sister have her own distinct voice and identity. I’ve read books where I was constantly flipping back to try to figure out who was speaking and the last thing I wanted to do was confuse readers!
I, typically, don’t do an extensive outline when I write, but because I was going to be alternating narrators, I needed to ensure I was giving each sister equal time on the page, or as equal as I could given the circumstances. That was probably my biggest challenge. Try giving your kids equal time to plead their case to you and you’ll know just how I felt!
What was the timeline from spark to publication, and what were the significant highlights along the way?
It took a little over a year from initial concept to publication. My editor at Aladdin, Alyson Heller, is a dream editor. I had worked with Alyson before, on STEALING POPULAR, my first book for Aladdin M!X, released in 2012. Once that book was completed, we started talking about doing another book and I pitched her several ideas, one of them being THE SISTER SOLUTION. I thought she might prefer to go another way, but this was the one that grabbed her and I’m so glad it did. I couldn’t wait to write it. After I got the go-ahead, it took me about five months to write the book. For the most part, everything went smoothly, although I had trouble coming up with a name for the older sister. I can’t say why – nothing seemed to fit. It was strange because usually the name is the first thing that I settle on. It’s what drives the character forward, but not this time. One day, my husband, a teacher, came home from school and mentioned he’d heard some good news about one of his former students, a extraordinary young lady who’d fought and survived pediatric brain cancer. Her name was Sammy! That was it. I changed the y to an i to make it a bit more unique and I had my sister! The book is also dedicated to Sammy.
What do you want young readers to take away from reading The Sister Solution?
I hope it gives them a bit of empathy for an older sibling if they are younger, or a younger sibling if they are older. When I was young, all I could see was that my sister was getting to do the things I wanted to do. It never crossed my mind that she might be scared to be the first one to dip her toes in the water and longed for an elder sister, who could give her some sage advice. I hope readers see how powerful and resilient the sibling bond can be. Friends come and go, but your sister remains, and if you nurture that relationship you will always have someone in your life you can count on.
What is your next project?
I’m currently writing another book for the Aladdin M!X line. In fact, the deadline for submitting the draft to my editor is the end of October, so it’s definitely crunch time! At the moment, the book is titled America Kestrel, and it’s the story of a girl from Seattle who, rather unwillingly, goes to visit her grandmother in Canada for the summer. She ends up trying to save her grandmother’s lodge from being sold to real estate developers. It’s a story about standing up for what you believe in, even when the odds are against you. Look for it in the spring of 2017!
