Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More


Giveaway: Daughter of Sherwood by Laura Strickland

Posted by Teddyrose@1 on November 30, 2013
Posted in My Past Giveaways  | 6 Comments

Thanks to Kelsey McBride Book Publicity Services, I am giving away one print or ebook of  Daughter of Sherwood.

Book Description:

Raised as a scullery maid in Nottingham Castle, Wren has no idea she is the daughter of the legendary Robin Hood. When she is forced to defend herself against the unwanted advances of an influential man, she flees the castle and finds refuge in Sherwood Forest. It is then she learns a powerful secret: she has a destiny as a guardian of Sherwood, charged with the responsibility of defending its ancient magic.
 
Since Robin’s death many years before, his supporters have kept his legend alive.  Now one of the three guardians holding the spell has died. With two young men, Sparrow and Martin, Wren must form a new bond strong enough to protect Sherwood and continue her father’s fight.  Drawn equally to Martin’s warrior spirit and Sparrow’s gentle strength, she finds it nearly impossible to choose between duty and love.
 
Laura takes us on a journey into the world of Robin Hood’s daughter, where we experience her struggle to accept her identity and the demands of her father’s legacy.  Along with Wren, we learn that what is loved in life can never be lost, and that great love is worth the price paid.  For at last, when Martin is captured and held at Nottingham Castle, the path becomes clear for Wren and she finds the strength to become the woman she was born to be, the Daughter of Sherwood.

Daughter of Sherwood is book one of The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy


About Laura Strickland:


Born and raised in Western New York, Laura Strickland has pursued lifelong interests in lore, legend, magic and music, all reflected in her writing. Though her imagination frequently takes her to far off places, she is usually happiest at home not far from Lake Ontario with her husband and her “fur” child, a rescue dog. Currently she is at work on the third book of the Guardians of Sherwood series.


This giveaway is open internationally.  If the winner is in the U.S. or Canada, s/he will have the choice of print or ebook.  An international winner would receive ebook.  This giveaway ends on December 14, 2013.  Please use Rafflecopter to enter.



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Copyright 2007-2010: All the posts within this blog were originally posted by Teddy Rose and should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Giveaway: THE ARIADNE OBJECTIVE by Wes Davis

Posted by Teddyrose@1 on November 29, 2013
Posted in My Past Giveaways  | 4 Comments

Thanks to Jessica Prudhomme of Crown Publishing Group | Penguin Random House LLC, I am giving away one copy of THE ARIADNE OBJECTIVE.

Book Description:

The incredible true story of the World War II spies, including Patrick Leigh Fermor and John Pendlebury, who fought to save Crete and block Hitler’s march to the East.
In the bleakest years of World War II, when it appeared that nothing could slow the German army, Hitler set his sights on the Mediterranean island of Crete, the ideal staging ground for German domination of the Middle East. But German command had not counted on the eccentric band of British intelligence officers who would stand in their way, conducting audacious sabotage operations in the very shadow of the Nazi occupation force.

   The Ariadne Objective
 tells the remarkable story of the secret war on Crete from the perspective of these amateur soldiers – scholars, archaeologists, writers – who found themselves serving as spies in Crete because, as one of them put it, they had made “the obsolete choice of Greek at school”: Patrick Leigh Fermor, a Byronic figure and future travel-writing luminary who as a teenager had walked across Europe in the midst of Hitler’s rise to power; John Pendlebury, a swashbuckling archaeologist with a glass eye and a swordstick, who had been legendary archeologist Arthur Evans’s assistant at Knossos before the war;  Xan Fielding, a writer who would later produce the English translations of books like Bridge over the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes; and Sandy Rendel, a future Times of London reporter, who prided himself on a disguise that left him looking more ragged and fierce than the Cretan mountaineers he fought alongside.

   Infiltrated into occupied Crete, these British gentleman spies teamed with Cretan partisans to carry out a cunning plan to disrupt Nazi maneuvers, culminating in a daring, high-risk plot to abduct the island’s German commander. In this thrilling untold story of World War II, Wes Davis offers a brilliant portrait of a group of legends in the making, against the backdrop of one of the war’s most exotic locales.

About Wes Davis:


WES DAVIS served for two years as an assistant to the director of excavations at Kavousi in Eastern Crete, not far from the plateau where Patrick Leigh Fermor parachuted onto the island during WWII. He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton University and is a former assistant professor of English at Yale University.  Editor of the Harvard University Press Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, he has written for publications that include the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Nation.

This giveaway is open to the U.S. only and ends on December 12, 2013.  Please use Rafflecopter to enter.
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Copyright 2007-2010: All the posts within this blog were originally posted by Teddy Rose and should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Review: The Cooked Seed by Anchee Min

Posted by Teddyrose@1 on November 29, 2013
Posted in Books Read in 2013  | 3 Comments

Book Description:

In 1994, Anchee Min made her literary debut with a memoir of growing up in China during the violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution. Red Azalea became an international bestseller and propelled her career as a successful, critically acclaimed author. Twenty years later, Min returns to the story of her own life to give us the next chapter, an immigrant story that takes her from the shocking deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the promised land of America, without language, money, or a clear path. 

It is a hard and lonely road. She teaches herself English by watching Sesame Street, keeps herself afloat working five jobs at once, lives in unheated rooms, suffers rape, collapses from exhaustion, marries poorly and divorces.But she also gives birth to her daughter, Lauryann, who will inspire her and finally root her in her new country. Min’s eventual successes-her writing career, a daughter at Stanford, a second husband she loves-are remarkable, but it is her struggle throughout toward genuine selfhood that elevates this dramatic, classic immigrant story to something powerfully universal.

My Thoughts:

I read the Red Azalea years ago and loved it so I could hardly wait to get my hands on The Cooked Seed to learn more about Anchee Min, in her adulthood.  

Boy she has been through a lot.  It almost seems like two lifetimes full.  After moving to the U.S. her struggle just to be able to stay was amazing.  Add to that her needing to find employment, learning English etc.  She tried to talk English with people as much as possible to learn it but that wasn’t always possible so she watched Sesame Street.  What a great idea, too bad they don’t have and adult ESL version.  I bet there are a lot of new immigrants out there who would watch it.

Min made some good choices and some bad in her new life.  Here first marriage was bad.  He talks her into buy a house to restore and make apartments but neither one has a clue with what they are doing and he pretty much gives up right away.  She keeps trying while he just sits.  One good thing came out of the marriage though, Lauryann.  With Lauryann,  Anchee finally takes real control over her life.  She leaves her deadbeat husband, for starters.

She met her second husband, the writer Lloyd Lofthouse through a dating service.  You know you he’s a keeper when he agrees to date her with her daughter in tow!  Actually, I have personally had the privilege of both reading his works and working with Lloyd and he is a gem! (Both he as a person and his writing).

I actually loved The Cooked Seed even more than The Red Azalea.  I highly recommend it, especially to those who love reading about the immigrant experience.  

5/5

I received the ebook version from Edlweiss for my honest opinion.
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Copyright 2007-2010: All the posts within this blog were originally posted by Teddy Rose and should not be reproduced without express written permission.