Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
Author:  Laurie Viera Rigler
Publisher: Penguin Plume
Publication date:  June 2009


Donated by: Penguin Plume

After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut, Courtney Stone wakes up and finds herself not in her Los Angeles bedroom or even in her own body, but inside the bedchamber of a woman in Regency England. Who but an Austen addict like herself could concoct such a fantasy? Not only is Courtney stuck in another woman’s life, she is forced to pretend she actually is that woman; and despite knowing nothing about her, she manages to fool even the most astute observer. But not even her level of Austen mania has prepared Courtney for the chamber pots and filthy coaching inns of nineteenth-century England, let alone the realities of being a single woman who must fend off suffocating chaperones, condom-less seducers, and marriages of convenience. This looking-glass Austen world is not without its charms, however. There are journeys to Bath and London, balls in the Assembly Rooms, and the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, who may not be a familiar species of philanderer after all. But when Courtney’s borrowed brain serves up memories that are not her own, the ultimate identity crisis ensues. Will she ever get her real life back, and does she even want to?  

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• Lori mailed 8/24 DC # 9102 1288 8230 0294 6094 82
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• 1.  Natalie - done
• 2.  Heather - done
• 3.  Tiffany - done
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• Reviews:
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• 1. Natalie - Coffee and a Book Chick
• 2. Heather - Proud Book Nerd
• 3. Tiffany - Tiffany's Bookshelf

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict
Author:  Laurie Viera Rigler
Publisher: Penguin Plume
Publication date:  June 2009

Donated by: Penguin Plume

In Laurie Viera Rigler's first novel, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, twenty­first-century Austen fan Courtney Stone found herself in Regency England occupying the body of one Jane Mansfield- with comic and romantic consequences. Now, in Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, Jane Mansfield awakens in the urban madness of twenty-first-century L.A.-in Courtney's body. With no knowledge of Courtney's life, let alone her world-with its horseless carriages and shiny glass box in which tiny figures act out her favorite book, Pride and Prejudice-Jane is over her head. Especially when she falls for a handsome young gentleman. Can a girl from Regency England make sense of a world in which kissing and flirting and even the sexual act raise no matrimonial expectations?

• TOUR COMPLETED!  THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING!

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• Participants: 
• Johanna  - done
• Katy - done
• Heather - done
• Tiffany - done
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• Reviews:
• Johanna - Books to Bury Yourself In
• Katy - A Few More Pages
• Heather - Proud Book Nerd
• Tiffany - Tiffany's Bookshelf
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The Butterflies of Grand Canyon

The Butterflies of Grand Canyon: A Novel
Author:  Margaret Erhart
Publisher: Penguin Plume
Publication date:  December 2009

Donated by:  Penguin Plume

Set against the backdrop of the brooding and sensual canyon, a young woman's heart awakens and a decades-old mystery is solved

When Jane Merkle arrives in the tiny town of Flagstaff, Arizona, with her much older husband on a summer day in 1951, she hasn't any idea that her life is about to change forever. After all, one of Jane's favorite sayings is "When in Rome, remember that you're from St . Louis." But over a summer spent with her sister-in-law, Dotty, and Dotty's lepidopterist husband, Oliver, in a village perched on the rim of the Grand Canyon, Jane discovers her latent ability with a butterfly net and her attraction to a handsome young ranger. Meanwhile, an unidentified skeleton is found on the premises of one of the village's most cantankerous citizens. With the help-and hindrance-of a colorful cast of historical characters, including an eccentric botanist who moonlights as an amateur sleuth, the murder mystery that has haunted the town for years is solved.

In her latest novel, set in the quintessential landscape of the Southwest, Margaret Erhart weaves history, science, and an intimate knowledge of the human heart to tell a fast-paced tale.

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How To Buy A Love of Reading

Love of Reading
Author:  Tanya Egan Gibson
Publisher:  Penguin Plume
Publication Date:  May 2009

Donated by: Penguin Plume

A playful, witty, and remarkably accomplished debut novel about how reading can save your life

Asked to name her favorite book, sixteen-year-old Carley Wells answers, "never met one I liked." Her parents are horrified and decide to commission a book to be written just for her. They will be the Medicis of Long Island and buy their daughter The Love of Reading. At first, Carley's sole interest in the project is to distract Hunter, the young bibliophile she adores. But as Hunter's behavior becomes increasingly erratic, Carley begins to understand the importance of stories-and how they are powerful enough to destroy a person. Or save her.

Tanya Egan Gibson's debut novel is an irresistible work of metafiction that dazzlingly embeds a book within the book, and boasts an unforgettably fresh narrator whose journey towards embracing literature will make you fall in love with reading all over again.

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Rebecca - done

Tiffany - done


Reviews

Rebecca - Beck's Book Picks
Tiffany - Tiffany's Bookshelf

Some Girls: My Life in a Harem

Some Girls: My Life in a Harem
Author:  Jillian Lauren
Publisher: Penguin Plume
Publication date:  April 27, 2010

Donated by:  Penguin Plume
A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem, and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser

At eighteen, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman in Singapore would pay pretty American girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next eighteen months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, youngest brother of the Sultan of Brunei, leaving behind her gritty East Village apartment for a palace with rugs laced with gold and trading her band of artist friends for a coterie of backstabbing beauties.

More than just a sexy read set in an exotic land, Some Girls is also the story of how a rebellious teen found herself-and the courage to meet her birth mother and eventually adopt a baby boy.

TOUR COMPLETE - THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING!

Participants
Andrea - done
Emily - done
Heather - done

Senora (Kendall) - done

Tiffany - rcv'd 11/8/10, mailed 11/27/10 DC# 0308 0070 0000 3215 7732 

Reviews

Andrea - A Chick Who Reads

Emily - The Many Thoughts of a Reader

Kendall - Reading, Reading and Life

Heather - Proud Book Nerd (DID NOT FINISH)

Tiffany - Tiffany's Bookshelf

The Two Lives of Miss Charlotte Merryweather

The Two Lives of Miss Charlotte Merryweather: A Novel
Author:  Alexandra Potter
Publisher: Penguin Plume
Publication date:  March 30, 2010



Donated by: Penguin Plume

At thirty-one, Charlotte Merryweather has it all: a successful public relations business, a loving and committed boyfriend, designer clothes, and a fabulous apartment. Life is much different than when she first came to London after graduating college in the States – her job is better, her clothes are better, and her residence is better. Of course, she has to work constantly to maintain her business, and she never really gets to see her flat or her boyfriend because she’s always out meeting clients, and since turning thirty she’s developed a slew of allergies – but her life is truly fabulous.

Or so she thinks, up until she’s redirected during rush hour traffic one morning, and she passes a VW Beetle that looks just like her own first car, driven by a young woman who looks unmistakably like her twenty-one year old self – the same curly, scrunch-dried hair, tan skin, and reckless, carefree spirit (demonstrated by the young woman’s slightly reckless driving – Charlotte’s much better than that now). When Charlotte sees her more than once on the same street, out of curiosity she follows her . . . back to the same address where Charlotte used to live, when she was working as a puzzle editor and her greatest concern was getting the sexy and elusive rocker Billy Romani to notice her.

And so when Charlotte literally bumps into her former self, Lottie, at the corner pub, she strikes up a friendship. Strange coincidence or no, Charlotte knows that this is the chance few people have – to impart some words of wisdom and help her former self avoid the mistakes she’d rather not have made over the past ten years. Yet as she spends more time with her twenty-one year old self, thirty-one year old Charlotte realizes that perhaps she’s lost some perspective over the years – and that maybe there are some things that the impulsive, fun-loving Lottie could help her remember about love, friendship, and living in the moment.

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• Leah - Amused by Books  
• Tiffany - Tiffany's Book Shelf 

The House on Teacher's Lane

The House on Teacher's Lane: A Memoir of Home, Healing, and Love's Hardest Questions
Author:  Rachel Simon
Publisher: Penguin Plume
Publication date:   May 25, 2010

Donated by:  Penguin Plume

The bestselling author of Riding the Bus with My Sister shares an illuminating and beautifully woven memoir about the unexpected ways a home renovation can repair a heart

When Rachel Simon and her architect husband begin to renovate their house on Teacher's Lane, she braces herself for the ups and downs that often accompany such projects. But to her surprise, as the old walls fall and new paint appears, she is propelled into a transformative journey as she confronts forgotten memories and repairs fractured bonds with those closest to her. This compassionate and humorous book shimmers with insights into the healing power of forgiveness, the struggle to find meaning and purpose, the compatibility of imperfection and happiness, and the ways that lost relationships-with friends, parents, siblings, spouse, and even self-can be rekindled.

Fans of Riding the Bus with My Sister and new readers alike will be drawn to Simon's masterful storytelling and profoundly life- affirming tale. Her story will resonate with anyone who's ever experienced the most universal human emotion-love, in its many forms- and wrestled with its hardest questions.

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The Bride's Farewell

The Bride's Farewell: A Novel
Author: Meg Rosoff
Publisher: Penguin Plume
Publication date:  July 27, 2010

Pell Ridley is the adventurous heroine in this serviceably told tale, the fourth novel for London-based Rosoff, who has written successfully for the YA market. On her wedding day, Pell leaves town on her faithful horse, Jack, grudgingly bringing along her mute younger brother, Bean. Pell shirks expectations and jilts her childhood beau, Birdie, with an oddly modern defiance of 1850s England convention. No matter that Birdie seems a nice enough man, unlike her abusive preacher father—Pell is stubborn in her desire to flee the domestic life in Nomansland that mires her mother in a sea of children and overwork. Pell arrives at the Salisbury horse fair and her adventures begin. She is separated from Bean and her horse but meets a poacher she dubs Dogman (he travels with a pack of dogs) and together they wander the countryside living on bread crusts and flickering hope. Pell's love and knowledge of horses factors largely in her fight for survival, but it's human love—romantic and familial—that drives plucky Pell and leads us to this simple but satisfying story's happy if unsurprising conclusion

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The Sixth Surrender

The Sixth Surrender: A Novel
Author:  Hana Samek Norton
Publisher: Penguin Plume
Publication date:  August 2010

Donated by:  Penguin Plume


In the last years of her eventful life, queen-duchess Aliénor of Aquitaine launches a deadly dynastic chess game to safeguard the crowns of Normandy and England for John Plantagenet, her last surviving son.

To that end, Aliénor coerces into matrimony two pawns-Juliana de Charnais, a plain and pious novice determined to regain her inheritance, and Guérin de lasalle, a cynical, war-worn mercenary equally resolved to renounce his.

The womanizing Lasalle and the proud Juliana are perfectly matched for battle not love-until spies and assassins conspire to reverse their romantic fortunes.

Populated by spirited and intelligent women and executed in flawless period detail, The Sixth Surrender is a compelling love story that heralds the arrival of a major new talent in historical fiction.

TOUR COMPLETE - THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING!

Participants::
Cindy - Done
Michelle - Done
Andrea - Done
Page - Done

Reviews:

Cindy - Oodles of Books

Michelle - True Book Addict
Andrea - A Chick Who Reads
Page - One Book At a Time

Trust

Trust: A Novel
Author: Kate Vietch
Publisher: Penguin Plume
Release date: June 29, 2010

Donated by:  Penguin Plume

Susanna Greenfield has given her all to being a good daughter, sister, wife, and mother. Somehow, she's maintained her profession as a college art teacher, as well as rearing two headstrong teenagers and nurturing a twenty-year marriage to Gerry, a confident, ambitious architect. She's also the eternal peacemaker between her pretty younger sister Angie, former junkie turned born-again Christian, and their strong- willed mother, Jean.

Just when Susanna is struggling to revive her creative career, a devastating accident rips apart the fabric of her world, exposing secrets which threaten to destroy both a marriage, and a life. Plumbing the rich emotional vocabulary of faith and betrayal, loyalty and forgiveness, Trust is the story of a woman's challenge to find her self.

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Lori mailed to Shon 8/24:  DC# 9102150134711317413329
 

1. Shon - done

2. JHS - review due 

3. Leah - done

REVIEWS:

1. Shon - My Book and Couch

2. JHS - Colloquium

3. Leah - Amused by Books (couldn't finish book)