King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: Before Versailles: A Novel of Louis XIV

author: Karleen Koen

genre: historical fiction

published: 2011

pages: 460

first line: Intelligent, virile, handsome, a man who made himself master of all he surveyed, Louis XIV was the foremost figure of his age.


source: TLC Book Tours


rated: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Louis XIV is one of the best-known monarchs ever to grace the French throne. But what was he like as a young man—the man before Versailles?


After the death of his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, twenty-two-year-old Louis steps into governing France. He’s still a young man, but one who, as king, willfully takes everything he can get—including his brother’s wife. As the love affair between Louis and Princess Henriette burns, it sets the kingdom on the road toward unmistakable scandal and conflict with the Vatican. Every woman wants him. He must face what he is willing to sacrifice for love.

Before Versailles centers around the first four months of Louis XIV's reign. You get to read about the women in the king's life and his decision making, as well as palace life in general. The story of a young Louis XIV was an interesting one.


The mystery, the romance and the going's on at the French court all kept me entertained.
Within the first pages there's a boy in an iron mask and a musketeer, my attention was captured instantly.


This is my first time reading about King Louis and I enjoyed author Karleen Koen's captivating storytelling. I felt like I was right there at the King's court. One thing I love about historical fiction is getting to learn a bit as you read. I now want to visit the Gardens of Versailles!

There was a certain listlessness to the evenings with Madame still absent. On this particular one, ladies were spread out near the queen on rugs and cushions, and the queen was content to sit in the suspended garden while her dwarves irritated courtiers by stealing fans or other trifles and dropping them into the water of the carp pond. Louis and his friends were on the water racing gondolas again.

p. 215

Special thanks to Lisa over @ TLC Book Tours.
Click here to see the rest of the tour stops.



About Karleen Koen:




Karleen Koen is the author of Now Face to Face andThrough a Glass Darkly, which was a New York Timesbestseller and featured a much older Alice Verney (known in that novel as the Duchess of Tamworth). The author lives in Houston, Texas.


Connect with Karleen at her website, karleenkoen.net, and on Facebook.

title: Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide

author: Linda Gray Sexton



genre: memoir

published: 2011

pages: 320

source: TLC Book Tours


first line: Sometimes, even my bones resonate with the melodies of my childhood.

rated: 4 out of 5






Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide is Linda Gray Sexton's heartfelt and emotional memoir.


Her mother was famous poet Anne Sexton. Linda is a successful writer herself and the prose in her memoir is achingly beautiful.



Linda's mother Anne suffered from severe depression and as a child she was witness to her mother's mental illness.
Linda was twenty one years old in 1974 when her mother committed suicide, after several attempts.

She loved her mother greatly, but Linda swore that she would not take on her mother's legacy of suicide and depression. She went on to marry and have children and become a writer. Throughout her life, Linda battled severe depression. As much as she fought it, her depression would return again and again.



Linda's memoir is intensely personal and emotional, and when I was done reading, I almost felt like I wanted to give her a hug. She shares her battle with depression and certain things she talks about are heart wrenching.
Her pain comes right off the pages.

I was curious to read Linda's memoir because I wanted to hear her take on suicide and depression. She shares her story here in a brave and insightful way.



Linda describes her suicide attempts as almost being beyond her control. Her depression was something she could not control or will away as much as she tried to.

A metaphor occurred to me that illustrated how I really felt: I was a soldier in a war zone, and I had to stay awake at my post. The enemy however, was no person. Instead it was depression, and, like a seductress, it sole up on me-just as sleep inevitably would, quietly pulling down the gray shades of my eyelids and making them as heavy as if they were weighted with the wet dirt of the grave. Increasingly, my world went into slow-motion and I spun out of myself, out of my head and heart, my face averted so no one would know the shame of what was happening to me and how I was giving in.


p.91

When Linda describes her first suicide attempt and how she was thinking about how she promised her children she would never do such a thing to herself as her mother had done, she brought tears to my eyes.

As if I could take back my terrible act, as if I could tighten the slack lips that could not kiss, mend the broken arms that could not hold, repair the promises cracked as old mirrors-all from this mother who, as her own mother before, had lost her grip on love.

p.9

After battling years of lingering depression and taking endless medications and going to therapy, Linda comes out a stronger person and gets some closure with her friends and family.




Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide is a moving and beautifully written memoir that is not to be missed.







Special thanks to Lisa over @ TLC Book Tours.
Click here to see other blogs on tour.




About the author:

Linda Gray Sexton was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1953. As the daughter of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Anne Sexton, she grew up in a home filled with books and words and an attention to language, and at an early age she, too, began to write. Afternoons were sometimes spent together with her mother, reading aloud from Anne’s favorite poems.

quoted from the authors website.

title: The Lotus Eaters

author: Tatjana Soli


published: 2010

pages: 389

genre: fiction

source: received for review/part of a book tour

first line: The city teetered in a dream state.


rated: 4 out of 5

In the final days of a falling Saigon, The Lotus Eaters unfolds the story of three remarkable photographers brought together under the impossible umbrella of war: Helen Adams, a once-naive ingenue whose ambition conflicts with her heart, over the course of the fighting.; the mysterious Linh, the Vietnamese man who loves her, but is torn between conflicting loyalties to his homeland and his heart; and Sam Darrow, a man addicted to the narcotic of violence, to his intoxicating affair with Helen and to the ever-increasing danger of his job. All three become transformed by the conflict they have risked everything to record.


In this much-heralded debut, Tatjana Soli creates a searing portrait of three souls trapped by their impossible passions, contrasting the wrenching horror of combat and the treachery of obsession with the redemptive power of love. Readers will be transfixed by this stunning novel of love, duty and ambition among the ruins of war.

I started reading The Lotus Eaters at around 10 o'clock one night after I settled into bed figuring I'd wind down my day with about 20 minutes of reading, instead I read for the next two hours unable to put down this intriguing book.





The Lotus Eaters opens up with thirty something American journalist and photographer Helen Adams living in Vietnam. It is 1975 and a war torn Saigon is falling.


Linh is the Vietnamese man who is the love of Helen's life, he too is a photographer.


Sam Darrow is an American photographer, whose passion for his work Helen can relate to. All three of these peoples lives are intertwined.



Author Tatjana Soli captures the setting perfectly, I felt like I was walking the streets in Saigon, witness to the sights and sounds she described.

She stood by the window drinking tea, looking at the overcast sky, roiling clouds in varying shades from light pewter to the muddy, brownish gray of scorched earth. The breeze had turned sharp, the smell of rain and thunder promising a strong monsoon shower. Saigon was loved precisely because it was so unlovable-its squalor, it biblical, Job-like misfortune, its imminent, hovering doom.
p. 19

I liked Helen's character right away, it was easy to imagine her drive and passion.
The story had everything I enjoy in a book, interesting plot, passionate well-written characters and beautiful prose.




As the story unfolds you get a glimpse into a warn torn Vietnam. Helen uses her camera to capture the beauty and violence of this country. She has come to love Vietnam and its people, her nickname being 'Helen of Saigon' among her fellow journalists. Helen is also struggling to make it in a dangerous and male dominated line of work. The death of her own brother in the line of duty drives her even more.
In the midst of all this chaos, she does not want to leave the country she has grown to love.

Outside, the plunged into a stream of people and were carried along. The ruttish noise deafening. Families argued over which direction to go, children cried, dogs barked, and on top of it all was the impatient blaring of horns as vehicles tried to force their way through. Far in the background, like the steady thrum of a heart, the sound of bombs exploding. The image of a bloodthirsty army approaching close and close made each person jog instead of walk, push instead of wait. Like a fix, Helen ached to pick up her camera and start shooting. What was the point of living though history if you didn't record it?
p. 26

I highly recommend The Lotus Eaters. I really enjoyed this one and was captivated from start to finish. This will be on my top favorite reads for 2011.











About the author:

Tatjana Soli is a novelist and short story writer. Born in Salzburg, Austria, she attended Stanford University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program.


Her stories have appeared in StoryQuarterly, Confrontation, Gulf Coast, Other Voices, Nimrod, Third Coast, Carolina Quarterly, Sonora Review and North Dakota Quarterly among other publications.


Her work has been twice listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She was awarded the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Prize, the Dana Award, finalist for the Bellwether Prize, and received scholarships to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.


She lives with her husband in Orange County, California, and teaches through the Gotham Writers’ Workshop.


Visit Tatjana’s website HERE.





Special thanks to Lisa over @ TLC Book Tours.
Click here to see other blogs on tour.

title: Something Beyond Greatness

authors: Judy Rodgers & Gayatri Naraine

pages: 122

published: 2009


genre: non fiction/self help

rated: 4 out of 5

In their worldwide search for extraordinary figures who fit the criteria for 'something beyond greatness,' authors Judy Rogers and Gayatri Naraine humbly discovered that the quality of greatness is not the exclusive province of those recognized publicly for their deeds. While all of us acknowledge that this noble characteristic is shared by people such as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King Jr., what Rogers and Naraine found is that this life-affirming quality very often rests in the ordinary.

In Something Beyond Greatness authors Judy Rodgers & Gayatri Naraine write about great people who have changed the world for the better. Their inspiration for this book was an Indian spiritual leader named Dadi Janki. They began searching for people who dedicated thier lives to serving others.

They simply feel that they were in the right place at the right time: the moment appeared, they had the opportunity to be of service to another, and they took it. In thier heart of hearts they believe that they only did what anyone would have done.

The authors then go on to speak with Humberto Maturana, who is a professor of Biology in the University of Chile in Santiago and an author, as well as Dadi Janki.


I found this book to be interesting and insightful. It was a quick read and I finished it in one sitting. Several passages stood out. This is one of my favorites:

Greatness is present when we mutually care for one another, when we listen to one another in mutual respect, and when we are open to mutual understanding. Greatness is naturally present, because love is the foundation of human coexistence.

This amazing quote comes from Dadi Janki:

Silence is the language of the soul. In deep silence I turn my attention from me, the soul, to God, the being of light who is my eternal parent, and I become lost in remembrance. In this space of deep, silent remembrance, I forge a relationship, and I experience God's love.

About the authors:


Judy Rodgers is a writer and communication consultant who has worked extensively with thought leaders. She has held a range of executive positions in large media companies such as CBS Video, CBS-Fox Video, and New World Entertainment. She has worked with opinion leaders such as Tom Peters, Peter Senge and David Cooperrider. She is also founding director of Images and Voices of Hope, an international dialogue initiative with media, journalism and the arts that seeks to strengthen the role of media as a constructive force in society.



Gayatri Naraine has been the Brahma Kumaris’ (BK’s) representative to the United Nations since 1980. In that capacity, her role was to connect what the UN was doing on a global scale in the social and humanitarian fields of development with what the BK’s were doing in those same areas using their expertise in spiritual growth of people on a personal scale. Gayatri was pivotal in the development of the Living Values Education program and worked closely with UNICEF and UNESCO in its implementation. She has also contributed to ILO’s (International Labor Organization) Agenda on Decent Work in their consultation with non-governmental organizations.




Special thanks to TLC Book Tours

www.tlcbooktours.com

title: A World I Never Made

author: James Lepore

pages: 262

genre: mystery, suspense

published: 2009

first line: Dad, I don't owe you or anybody an explanation, but I think you'll appreciate the irony of a suicide note coming from a person who has abhorred tradition all of her life.


rated: 4 out of 5





In A World I Never Made, American Pat Nolan is called to Paris to claim the body of his daughter Megan. Apparently Megan was suffering from cancer and commited suicide.
Megan had been traveling the world working as a freelance journalist for many years and Pat went for long stretches of time without seeing her. Pat raised Megan alone because her mother died during childbirth.
However, when Pat sees the body, he knows right away it is not his daughter. For some reason Megan faked her death and Pat is trying to find out why she did it and where she is now.

Pat looked into Annabella Jeritza's eyes and then down at his hands. He had used these hands to do and fix many things. Move the earth with a giant machine, tear apart and rebuild a car engine, make a soda box wagon for Megan. He sometimes thought that whatever he was good for in life was contained in his hands. But now he had entered the territory of the broken heart, which hands could not repair.

With the help of a beautiful Parisian detective Catherine Laurence, Pat goes on a hunt to find his daughter. Slowly but surely, startling secrets are revealed about Megans life.


As the book goes on you get glimpses into Megans life. She met a Saudi businessman named Abdel Lahani and began to have an affair with him. What Megan doesn't realize is the danger she has put herself into because of her connection to Abdel.




I really enjoyed A World I Never Made. There were alot of plot twists and turns. I liked Pat's chracter and I was quickly drawn into the story.

If you're in the mood for a suspenseful story with interesting characters, pick this one up.


Special thanks to Lisa at TLC Booktours




---------------------------------

Now onto author James Lepore's guest post.




Naida,


You have kindly said I could feel free to post whatever I like, so here goes.

“When women stop reading, the novel well be dead.” Ian McEwan, novelist.

I have been thinking lately about the fact that women make up 70% of the fiction readers in the world and wondering what effect this will have on me and the career I would like to have as a novelist. Reasons for the women-read-more-fiction phenomenon abound: women have more advanced mirror neurons (some kind of nerve endings behind the eyes), which make them more empathetic; women are genetically engineered to be more in touch with their own emotions and therefore are more willing to make the emotional commitment required to engage with other people, in the real as well as the fictional world; girls do better at reading/writing assignments in school because they are more patient and this carries over into adulthood. Whatever the reason, it’s a hard fact that women read much more fiction than men.


What does this mean for me, a male novelist? Can I compete with the many extremely popular female writers out there? I don’t know. I take heart from the fact that of the twenty or so good reviews of A World I Never Made, ninety percent are by women. One or two have commented on the well-drawn female characters in the novel. (There are two, Megan Nolan, the beautiful, cynical young woman who fakes her suicide because she is on the run from some very bad people; and Catherine Laurence, a French detective who shakes off her sadness to help Megan’s father, Pat, track her down). We all have traits or “sides,” as they say, that are thought more traditionally to belong to the opposite sex. Maybe I have a feminine side that gives me insight into women, or at least helps me describe the workings of their hearts with some credibility. Or maybe it’s because there came a point in my life when, after much resistance— dumb guy that I was—I finally began to grapple with, rather than avoid, my own feelings.


I don’t know the answer. I do know that, as a man, I like action as a means of resolving problems. I do not see the point of dithering when a decision has to be made. However, I understand that it is the heart that has to be looked to—and listened to—when deciding what action to take. Megan Nolan had a huge heart-driven reason for doing what she did, as did Pat and Catherine. To me, listening to the heart is a human thing, not a gender thing. It is the first thing we have to learn how to do in order to grow as human beings. And I hope this idea—how crucial it is that we listen to our hearts—is what people—men and women—take away from A World I Never Made, and anything else I am fortunate enough to get into print in the future.




------------------------


Thank you Mr. Lepore for stopping by my blog today!
I totally agree when you say: 'listening to the heart is a human thing, not a gender thing'




About the author:


Jim Lepore practiced law (civil trial work) in New Jersey for over twenty years and then sold the practice so he could write and take pictures full time. Some of his photography can be seen at nakedeyeimages.com.

title: The Secret Keeper

author: Paul Harris

published: 2009

genre: Mystery/Thriller


pages: 318

first line: He ran his tongue over his swollen gums and tasted blood.

courtesy of: TLC Booktours

rated: 4 out of 5







In The Secret Keeper, British journalist, Danny Kellerman gets an assignment in war torn Sierra Leone, West Africa. It's the opportunity of a lifetime. While there, Danny meets a woman named Maria Tirado. In Sierra Leone, the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) has taken over and rules with brutality, senselessly murdering and torturing. Maria operates an orphanage for child soldiers. She helps children who where made to join the RUF were turned into murderers and had no way to get back home.





Now, four years later, Danny has left war torn Sierra Leone and lives in London with his girlfriend Rachel. One day Danny receives an urgent letter from his long ago love, Maria. She is pleading for his help. After some investigating, Danny finds out that Maria was murdered.
Danny decides he needs to uncover the truth about her death, so he goes back to Sierra Leone. Once there he meets up with an old aquantaince, a man named Kam, and begins trying to find out the truth about Maria's murder. It turns out, her death is being covered up and passed on as a robbery.

Back at his desk, Danny, for the first time, allowed himself to remember Maria. Her long, dark hair, the birthmark on her right shoulder, the way she narrowed her eyes when she thought he was getting out of line. Her touch. How could comeone like her die? It felt as if the universe was out of sync. He had to get over there. Had to see where it had happened, to see that something so wrong could be real.

The Secret Keeper is well written, interesting and sucked me in from page one. The story takes off and doesn't stop, I didn't find a dull moment.
The plot was great, and the characters are well written. I liked Danny, and even though I didn't really think he should have gone off to Africa and endanger his own life in order to find out the truth about Maria, I wanted him to make it home safely. Paul Harris' writing is memorable, he has a way with words. Several passages stood out.

It was a tap on the shoulder that had sent him to Sierra Leone for the first time. He liked to imagine, sitting later in a Freetown bar or, afterward, alone and drunk in a London pub, that it was like a finger from God coming out of the sky to change his life. But it was a tap on the shoulder. That had been all. That had been enough.

He did not turn around and he kept his eyes focused on the doorway at the end of the corridor. It was open and he could see daylight outside. His heart was beating so loud he felt the man behind must hear it, must sense his terror. Finally he was there, emerging into the light. Kam sat in his car and started the engine. Danny walked hestitantly forward, swaying slightly, the sunshine on his skin feeling like a rebirth.

Special thanks to Lisa at TLC Booktours


click here to see the other blogs participating in this book tour

related link: http://www.thesecretkeeper.us/