Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More


Feb 13

15

February Reviews For the 2013 ARC Reading Challenge

Posted by Teddyrose@1 on February 15, 2013
Posted in 2013 Challenge Update  | 21 Comments

In January, we collectively read and reviewed 30 ARC’s for a total of 30 ARC’s, so far in 2013!  
Here are the standings so far:

Level Bronze (up to 12 Arcs):
Andrea 5
Christine 3
Krista 2
Nicola 6
Rebecca 4
Teddy 5

 Working on Silver:

Silver (24 ARCS):

Working on Gold:

Gold ( 30 ARCS):

Working on Platinum:

Platinum (35 ARCS):

If you don’t see yourself in the standings above, it is because you didn’t leave a comment telling me how many books you read so far. You need to do this at the end of each month.

Please post the books you read in February for the challenge in Mr. Linky, below:
If you forgot to post book in any previous months, please post them in Mr. Linky below as well.

Please enter your name and the name of the book in this format: Name: (Your Name, Book Title and Author’s Name) for example: (Teddy, Obsessive Reading by Helen Reader). Tweet

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

Feb 13

13

Giveaway & Excerpt: THE K STREET AFFAIR by Mari Passananti

Posted by Teddyrose@1 on February 13, 2013
Posted in Excerpt • My Past Giveaways  | 10 Comments

Thanks to Kelley & Hall Book Publicity, I am giving away one print copy of The K Street Affair.


Book Description:


Mari Passananti’s THE K STREET AFFAIR (Rutland Square Press, January 8, 2013) is an explosive thriller that explores secret offshore money laundering and terror finance by politicians and their corporate friends. 


Hours after a crippling attack rocks Washington, D.C., Lena Mancuso, a talented young associate at one of the country’s best law firms, finds federal agents at her door, bearing unbelievable news. Lena’s clients may have financed the murder of hundreds of civilians. The FBI wants Lena’s insider access to spy on her firm’s high-profile roster of international clients, whose ranks include a disgraced K Street lobbyist, a flamboyant Russian oil baron and the future Saudi king—unlikely bedfellows linked by common interests in a massive multinational corporation. A corporation that seeks to control the world oil markets and install one of their own in the Oval Office.


Helping the FBI means Lena will endanger herself and everyone she loves, but refusing them feels unthinkable. Armed with a mix of smarts, intuition and grit she never knew she possessed, Lena will risk everything in a race to stop a catastrophic chain of events.


Excerpt:


Every soul employed in the fancy glass office building at 1050 Connecticut Avenue swarms the exits well before the alarm system finishes blaring its robotic instructions. We march slowly and deliberately down a stairwell plunged into blackness, illuminated only by emergency bulbs at each landing. I’m grateful nobody has panicked, but I can’t help silently urging my colleagues to pick up the pace. The alarm shrieks deep inside my head, even with my hands pressed over my ears.


How many minutes since the floor rocked under our feet? Can aftershocks take down buildings? Crush the people in them?


I try to estimate our progress, but lose count of the steps before we reach the pavement. I pause and blink at the shock of sunlight before realizing that every person who stops for a moment to regroup slows the evacuation. A detail cop yells at us to move north along Connecticut Avenue. Good. Shorter buildings up there.


On the sidewalk the news barrels over us: Not an earthquake. A bomb. A massive one. The kind that can change everything.


The phones crash as I’m breathlessly relating my escape from Rutledge & Smerth to Damien. My husband listens without comment for several minutes.


I pause to look at the screen. No signal. I wonder how long I’ve been talking to dead air. Sirens wail, both in the distance and down the block. Conversation ceases while hundreds of my shell-shocked co-workers study their unresponsive phones. There’s a bizarre but absolute absence of hysteria.


A vaguely familiar man touches my arm. “Lena, are you okay?”


I nod absently and turn away from this guy I now recognize as a paralegal from my floor. I can’t muster any conversation. I just want to go home. Hide under the covers. Erase the past thirty minutes from memory.


Firemen in full hazmat gear herd us further from the smoking crater that used to be the K to L Street block of Connecticut Avenue. They string up yellow police tape several yards back from the crumbling pavement, and plead with the most aggressive gawkers to back off so rescue teams can do their jobs. News vans start to arrive and soon outnumber ambulances. An officer with a bullhorn yells at the crowd to disperse. I pick my way through the crowd of faces, some familiar, many not. I finally reach M Street and turn north on 19th.


The walk takes twice as long as it should, because pedestrians, most underdressed for the January cold, clog the streets. My naked ears and fingers ache, but I feel guilty for wishing I had my coat. I should feel thankful to be alive and unscathed. By the time I arrive at our doorstep on T Street, it takes me three tries to maneuver the key into the lock with my numb hands.

I crank the heat, glad for the first time ever that Damien insisted we keep our landline. I knock a pile of magazines and catalogs out of the way so I can see its caller I.D. box, which has recorded more traffic this afternoon than during the entirety of the last two years. I try Damien at work. His steady voice on the outgoing message explains he has left for the day. He recites his temporarily useless mobile number and email address.


I talk to my mother, insist I’m shell shocked but physically fine. I urge her to refrain from taking any of the prescription sedatives one of her book club ladies recommended. We hang up. I scroll back through the missed calls. My friend Hannah is the only member of our inner circle who hasn’t checked in. Her office is a block from mine, a few hundred yards further removed from the crater on Connecticut. I saw, through the swirling ash and smoke, that her building withstood the jolt. Maybe Hannah will think to walk over here. We’re much closer than her place across the river. I try to check Facebook, but our Internet isn’t working. The router’s insolent red light blinks under the desk.


On TV, NBC’s anchorman reports, “At 12:13 p.m. in the nation’s capital, at least six explosive devices detonated on different Metrorail trains. The explosions appear to have been simultaneous. The Secret Service, along with agents from both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, are trying to determine who or what triggered the blasts.”


Blasts, plural.


Six of them? I grab the arm of the couch for support. Tell myself the blasts can’t all have been as bad as the one under my building.


The screen shows a map of DC’s Metro system. In addition to the bomb right outside my building, there are explosion icons at Capitol South Station, between Chevy Chase and Bethesda Stations, at Foggy Bottom, downtown at Metro Center, and across the river, at Pentagon City Station.


The anchorman says, “Initial estimates put the death toll over 700, and rising.” I feel the world tilt under my feet. 700? “Many area roads have collapsed from the force of the underground explosions. We have no solid figures on the number of wounded, but police estimate that over a thousand people await treatment at area hospitals. Search and rescue teams from around the country have started to arrive in the DC area to aid overwhelmed first responders. Time is of the essence. If anyone is alive under the rubble, they will be unlikely to survive overnight. Record lows are forecast throughout the region. Elsewhere around the nation, police are on high alert. The FAA has ordered all U.S. airports closed at this hour.”


About Mari Passananti:


Mari Passananti is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island and Georgetown University Law Center. She lives in Boston, where she divides her time between writing and keeping up with her toddler. She is currently working on her third novel. To learn more, visit www.maripassanantibooks.com.


Sorry, this giveaway is open to the U.S. only and ends on February 27, 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.

Feb 13

8

Interview & Giveaway: Bobbie Pyron, author of The Dogs of Winter

Posted by Teddyrose@1 on February 8, 2013
Posted in Book Tours • Guest Authors/ Interviews • My Past Giveaways  | 6 Comments

 Yesterday I gave you my 5 star review of The Dog’s Of Winter by Bobbie Pyron.  You can read it here.  Today it is my pleasure to have here at So Many Precious Books as my guest. Please welcome Bobbie Pyron, Author of the amazing book, The Dogs of Winter.  Hi Bobbie, thanks so much for joining us today.



 1. Please tell us a bit about yourself.


 I’m the author of three books, THE RING (2009), A DOG’S WAY HOME (2011) and THE DOGS OF WINTER (2012). I’ve also worked as a librarian for over 25 years, so needless to say, I’m passionate about books! The other great, over-riding passion in my life is dogs. I have three dogs (all rescues)—two are Shetland sheepdogs and the other one is a coyote mix. I volunteer with several different rescue organizations here in the Park City, Utah, area. When I’m not writing or working at the library, I’m usually out on the trails hiking, skiing, or running with my dogs and my husband. I also have a tattoo J


2. What was your inspiration for writing The Dogs of Winter.


In 2005, I read a magazine article about feral children. The article opened with the story of four-year-old Ivan Mishukov, a homeless child who lived with a pack of street dogs from 1996-1998. Since I’ve always suspected I am more canine than primate, I’ve been fascinated by feral children for a long time! I was completely enthralled by Ivan’s story. I knew as soon as I read about Ivan and the dogs that I had to write a novel about them.

3. I loved the book so much and would love to know more.  Is there anything else you can tell us about the story that wasn’t in the book and/or which is the best, one resource where we can find out more.


There was not that much for me to go on, where the real Ivan Mishukov’s story is concerned. All I was able to confirm (to my satisfaction) about his story is this: he was forced from his home at age four to live on his own on the streets of Moscow. He was adopted by a pack of feral street dogs and lived exclusively with them as one of the pack for two years. After three attempts, the authorities finally managed to separate Ivan and the dogs. Ivan was captured and taken to an orphanage there in Moscow. The dogs did track him there, and howled outside the orphanage entrance for several nights. Because of this, Ivan was moved to an orphanage outside of Moscow. I was never able to determine for certain what happened to Ivan after that. Everything else beyond these bare-bone facts in the story are my imagination.


4. You’ve  written two “dog” books, A Dogs Way Home and The Dogs of Winter will there be more?  What’s next?


I have a really fun middle grade novel coming out sometime in 2014. I should have more details about this new book posted on my website by the end of February, so stay tuned!


 I would also like to add that I don’t really see THE DOGS OF WINTER as a “dog story.” Rather, I see it as a story about what makes us human and what defines “family” and what defines “civilized.”


5. Are there any question in the interviews that you would have like to have been asked?


That’s a good question! Maybe, “What did you enjoy most about writing THE DOGS OF WINTER?” As with all my books (and writing fiction, in general) the part I love the most is creating characters and getting to know them. Once that character finds its voice and springs to life, I like to just get out of his/her way, sit back, and watch what they do and who they are. I will tell you that in THE DOGS OF WINTER, the character I most enjoyed getting to know was Rudy. He’s the character I find myself, even now, thinking about most often. Some readers may see Rudy as “the bad guy” or a bully, but I have a real soft spot for him. He haunts me.


Thanks again for joining us today, Bobbie!

About Bobbie Pyron:


Bobbie was born in Hollywood, Florida and spent her growing up years up in the panhandle, swimming in the Gulf of Mexico and dreaming of being a mermaid.  She has degrees in Psychology and Anthropology, and a Masters degree in Library Science, and has worked as a librarian for over twenty-five years.


Her first book, a novel for teens titled The Ring (WestSide Books), was published in October of 2009. Her second book, A Dog’s Way Home (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books), was published to starred reviews in March of 2011. The Dog Writers Association of America recently awarded Bobbie the Maxwell Medal of Excellence and the Merial Human-Animal Bond Award.  It was also named a Banks Street Best Books of the Year.


Her new book, The Dogs of Winter (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic), came out October of 2012. The Dogs of Winter is a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Kirkus Best 100 Children’s Books of the Year. Bobbie lives in Park City, Utah with her husband, three dogs, and two cats.



 Now for the giveaway, thanks to Bobbie, I am giving away one print copy.  Sorry, this giveaway is open to the U.S. only and ends on March 1, 2013.  Please use Rafflecopter to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the Tour:
Pages of Forbidden Love Jan 30 Review                                 
So Many Precious Books Feb 7 Review
So Many Precious Books Feb 8 Interview & Giveaway
Sweeps 4 Bloggers Feb 11 Review & Giveaway
The Wormhole Feb 12  Review
The Wormhole Feb 13 Interview
My Devotional Thoughts Feb 13 Review
A Book Lover’s Library Feb 14 Review
A Book Lover’s Library Feb 15 Interview
As I Turn the Pages Feb 18 Review
Haunting Orchid Feb 19 Review
Books a la mode  Feb 20 Interview & Giveaway
Geo Librarian Feb 22 Review
Geo Librarian Feb 25  Interview & Giveaway
Lovey Dovey Books Feb 25 Review
Book Journey Feb 26 Review & Giveaway
Bookhounds Feb 27 Review
Book Snatch Feb 28 Interview & Giveaway

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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.

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