BLOG TOUR: Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Title: Orphan Train

Author: Christina Baker Kline
Genre: Adult Literary/Historical Fiction
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Release Date: April 2/2013

Adquired: Print ARC provided by Publisher

Goodreads: ADD

Purchase: Amazon/Indigo/Book Depository

The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.

Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.

Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.

Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.

Stacking the Shelves (14)- June 23/13

 Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga at Tynga's Reviews that is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. Tynga posts her own STS on Saturdays.

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REVIEW: Sweet Salt Air by Barbara Delinsky

Title:                       Sweet Salt Air
Author:                   Barbara Delinsky
Release Date:      June 18/2013
Genre:                Women's Fiction/Romance

Publisher:           St. Martin's Press

Page Count:        416

Acquired:            ARC from Wunderkind for review

Format:              Print ARC

Read On:             June 10-13/2013

Goodreads:         ADD

Purchase:           Amazon/Indigo/Book Depository

On Quinnipeague, hearts open under the summer stars and secrets float in the Sweet Salt Air...

Charlotte and Nicole were once the best of friends, spending summers together in Nicole's coastal island house off of Maine. But many years, and many secrets, have kept the women apart. A successful travel writer, single Charlotte lives on the road, while Nicole, a food blogger, keeps house in Philadelphia with her surgeon-husband, Julian. When Nicole is commissioned to write a book about island food, she invites her old friend Charlotte back to Quinnipeague, for a final summer, to help. Outgoing and passionate, Charlotte has a gift for talking to people and making friends, and Nicole could use her expertise for interviews with locals. Missing a genuine connection, Charlotte agrees.

But what both women don't know is that they are each holding something back that may change their lives forever. For Nicole, what comes to light could destroy her marriage, but it could also save her husband. For Charlotte, the truth could cost her Nicole’s friendship, but could also free her to love again. And her chance may lie with a reclusive local man, with a heart to soothe and troubles of his own.

Bestselling author and master storyteller Barbara Delinsky invites you come away to Quinnipeague…

BLOG TOUR: Restrike by Reba White Williams

Title: Restrike

Author: Reba White Williams
Genre: Adult Cozy Mystery
Publisher: Delos

Release Date: June 1/2013

Adquired: Print ARC provided by Publisher

Goodreads: ADD

Purchase: Amazon/Indigo/Book Depository

Cousins Coleman and Dinah Greene moved from North Carolina to New York after college to make their mark on the art world: Coleman is the editor of an influential arts magazine and Dinah is the owner of a print gallery in Greenwich Village. But their challenges are mounting as one of Coleman's writers is discovered selling story ideas to a competitor and The Greene Gallery is in the red because sales are down.

When billionaire Heyward Bain arrives with a glamorous assistant, announcing plans to fund a fine print museum, Coleman is intrigued and plans to get to know Bain and publish an article about him. Dinah hopes to sell him enough prints to save her gallery. At the same time, swindlers, attracted by Bain’s lavish spending, invade the print world to grab some of his money.

When a print dealer dies in peculiar circumstances, Coleman is suspicious, but she can’t persuade the NYPD crime investigator of a connection between the dealer’s death and Bain’s buying spree. After one of Coleman’s editors is killed and Coleman is attacked, the police must acknowledge the connection, and Coleman becomes even more determined to discover the truth about Bain. In an unforgettable final scene, Coleman risks her life to expose the last deception threatening her, her friends, and the formerly tranquil print world.

GIVEAWAY: June New Release Giveaway Hop (INT)

BLOG TOUR + EXCERPT: Eleusis by Genevieve Fairbrother

Title: Eleusis

Author: Genevieve Fairbrother
Genre: Fantasy/Mythology Women's Fiction

Release Date: Feb 12/2013

Adquired: Print copy sent from Author

Goodreads: ADD

Purchase: Amazon

Her parents are dead and now a moody trespasser has set up camp on the property Macy has inherited. When the stranger confesses himself to be an ageless sea-god and tells her she has been guarding a secret she never knew existed, her once simple life takes a drastic turn. Just when she thinks it can’t get any stranger, a back door to the Underworld opens up and it’s time to run like hell.

Mythology and contemporary life collide as this fast-paced novel explodes and dark forces tracking Macy surface to capture her. In the transatlantic chase that follows, she learns of her forgotten past and a centuries-old connection to the sea-god who helps her escape. A tragic miscalculation derails Macy and in a moment of self-sacrifice she ends up where it all began, trapped in the Underworld.

Has she learned enough about her past to forge a meaningful future? Utterly alone, she realizes that to gain real freedom, she must reject her assigned place in history and in doing so risk everything.

PROMO BLAST: Endure (The Protector #4) by M.R.Merrick

REVIEW: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Title:                       Fangirl
Author:                   Rainbow Rowell
Release Date:      Sept 10/2013
Genre:                YA Contemporary

Publisher:           St. Martin's Press

Page Count:        416

Acquired:            NetGalley

Format:              E-ARC: Kindle

Read On:            May 5-29/2013

Goodreads:         ADD

Purchase:           Amazon/Indigo/Book Depository

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan...

But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

Or will she just go on living inside somebody else’s fiction?

BLOG TOUR: Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn