Lawrence Davenport lives a fortunate life. He has a brilliant career, an enviable home, a devoted wife, and so much more. But Lawrence Davenport also has a brutal secret. After three years, Emmet Navar is still grieving the death of his wife. Month by month he puts more pieces of his outwardly simple world back together, dedicating himself to his boys first and his firm second. The woman they both know is battling demons from her past, demons in the present, and demons she is sure will rear in her future...and the future of those now close to her. Many days she allows herself to be fooled to believe her life is normal...even happy.
Full of suspense, adventure and humor, you'll fall in love with the characters at every twist and turn in Merciful Law. It is the perfect blend of male and female, action and romance. As the story unfolds, you will wonder who will win, who will lose, who will live and who will die.
Merciful Law...they had a marriage to die for...and someone will.
Teaser:
"Although at least one hundred feet away, I could see the hate and determination in his eyes. He was coming for me. He was going to kill me. My heart nearly exploded."
Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.
Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.
In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.
Teaser:
"What if she went into the backyard, buried her feet in the rich dirt, and lifted her arms to the heavens? Would her skin slowly harden into tree bark? Would she bloom with more petals, maybe from her stomach or the top of her head? It was a terrifying though."
Well, those are the books that I’m reading today: One adult romantic suspense and one YA fantasy/paranormal.
I'm joining two holiday challenges this year to try to force myself to read something with holiday spirit this season and not just review books!! Please follow the links to the challenge hosts to find out more!
I am so pleased to welcome Lorena Bathey to my blog! You can find my review of the wonderful book Beatrice Munson Here!
A Chat with Lorena Bathey
Melissa: Welcome Lorena:) Thanks for joining us! Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Lorena: Well, I became an author when my entire life turned upside down about six years ago. After losing my mother to cancer and my marriage falling apart, I began writing about my survival and found that what I really wanted to say was that as a woman I had got lost in my roles. That's how my first book, Happy Beginnings: How I Became My Own Fairy Godmotherwas written. It was apparent to me that women easily follow the paths and the roles laid out for them and forget about being happy themselves. After writing seventeen chapters of a book I never started out to write I decided that I didn't want to wait for an agent or publisher to tell me it was good enough. The story needed to be told, many women needed it. So there began my writing career. Melissa: Can you tell me a little bit about Beatrice Munson and what inspired it?
Lorena: While I was writing my first book I got this character in my head. She was a lot like me at the time, single mom of two kids trying to make it in suburbia. Then quickly the rest of the cast joined in and I began writing Beatrice Munson. I only wrote about half of it when the inspiration waned and I got busy doing speaking and conferences with Happy Beginnings. It wasn't until last year I picked up the book and started writing it again and finished it in about six months.
Melissa: How much are the characters in Beatrice Munson informed by people that you know/knew in real life?
Lorena: Well, there's a mixture of people I knew, including myself. Aspects of friends were sprinkled in everywhere. The essence of the story I lived everyday in the suburban landscape and I met women that had a lot of the same aspects of the women of Vista Heights. I guess the most obvious example of that is Marissa...of course, she was a lot of me at the time I started writing it. But I also was part of Beatrice too.
Melissa: And which of the characters is your favorite and why?
Lorena: That's a tie between Beatrice and Jeffery. Of course, you could say they are both a lot alike but there are differences. Beatrice seems to have a firmer hand on who she is. While Jeffery has this rather vulnerable quality about him. But both seem to understand the concept of unconditionally loving those around them.
Melissa: If Beatrice Munson were made into a movie (and what gorgeous party scenes there would be) who would you want to portray:
Lorena: a. Beatrice : Kate Winslet
b. Marissa : Hillary Swank
c. Andrea: Vera Farmiga
d. Diedre : Eva Mendes
e. Lily: Mila Jovovich
f. Graydon: Josh Duhamel
g. Jeffery: Robert Downey Jr.
Lorena: I am a computer girl. Have to because when the words come they come so fast I have to type really fast to keep up.
I write the best at Panera. It's a chain of bakery/sandwich shops. For some reason sitting in a booth and smelling the baking bread while the hustle of the world surrounds me is the perfect writing cocoon. But I can write anywhere when I get an inspiration. Once there is an idea in my head I gotta get it down because otherwise it just keeps bouncing around in my brain.
Perfect example would be, on a recent trip to an amusement park I got the idea for one of my next books. I wrote the beginning on my calendar on my smart phone on the way home.
Melissa: What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?
Lorena: Well, I have been really lucky...people love Beatrice Munson. But the couple that have said things they didn't like have actually been great...I know...that sounds like crap. But really, hearing the negatives makes me a better writer. So when someone says they don't like something about Beatrice Munson then I can use that in my next book, and I have.
Best compliment is that they want to read more of my work. Seriously, when you're a writer you got over your work so many times you are truly sick of your own writing. Then you put it out into the world and you hope someone falls in love with these ideas and people that have formed in your head. But it's a risk. So when I hear that a reader wants more of my work, more of my stories...well it's the best feeling ever because in many ways it's validation that I am doing the right thing with my life.
Melissa: What book is currently on your nightstand? And who are some of your favorite authors?
Lorena: First off, I am an addict to Goodreads giveaways this has created a plethora of books in my reading queue. I just finished the The Kitchen House. I was enjoying the story but felt it a bit tired when all of a sudden the last half of the book just hit me right between the eyes. It was interesting but in the Afterward the author said the whole story came to her like a movie in her head and she had to write it. That's exactly what happens to me.
I am in love with Stephen King. Not so much his scary stuff but his works like The Stand, Under the Dome, and The Green Mile. He is the master at characterization. Seriously, The Stand is a work of art in not only developing characters but bringing them all together in one story. I also respect the way he works and the humble quality he has about what he does.
Melissa: What do you like to do when you're not writing?
Lorena: I have become a semi-pro photographer ;) I love taking pictures and since I can't paint or draw it's my form of artistic expression. I see things differently and so I use my lens to capture that.
I also have an amazing family and we are extremely close. Meeting my busband (more than a boyfriend, more like a husband) a couple years ago not only brought the love of my life to my world but allowed us to blend our families together to create an amazing and completely fun whole family. We do a lot together!
Melissa: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Lorena: Absolutely. It's one word : WRITE!
I know that seems obvious but it is the one thing that can trip a wannabe writer up. Don't worry if the story isn't perfectly plotted out. Don't worry if the wording sounds bad. Don't worry about the grammar in the beginning. Just sit down and write what's in your head. Get it out on paper. All the fine tuning comes later.
And don't think that your style or way of writing isn't going to work. There are seven billion people out there in the world. If you do good work, someone is gonna love it.
Melissa: What can we expect from you next?
Lorena: My next novel, House on Plunkett Streetcomes out in mid-December. It's the story of Phoebe Bertram who really has a bland life and then she moves into a new apartment and three women ghosts from times past arrive on her couch one night. The story is about Phoebe discovering that life is meant to be lived as these ghosts show her how.
Then I'm going in a different direction with a book called The X. It's the story of a woman who finds her world shattered when her husband divorces her and takes her kids away. She has to find power in herself to discover the mystery behind her X and then take him down. It's a suspense/thriller.
Melissa: And now for a little bit of fun:)
This or That?
Coffee or Tea? Coffee...and lots of it! Beach or Lake? Beach Winter or Summer? Winter..love the rainy nights and old movies on the couch. Cats or Dogs? Dogs Zombies or Vampires? Um...vampires of course. They only suck your blood while zombies eat you. Country or City? City Shower or Bath? Shower...one of the great pleasure in life! Morning or Evening? This is hard...I love 'em both but gotta go with Evening when the day is done and a cocktail is in my hand. M&Ms or Skittles? M&M's...it's all about the chocolate Trains or Planes? Totally planes Comedy or Drama? Comedy...laughter is the best medicine.
Lorena: Thanks so much for this wonderful opportunity to share about myself, my work, and the quirks of my existence.
Melissa: It was a pleasure! Thanks so much for chatting with me:)
Growing up in the Bay Area of Northern California, Lorena Bathey attended St. Mary’s College in Moraga graduating with a degree in English. Then she traveled, learned about life, and developed great fodder for a book. Losing her mother to cancer and her own marriage’s demise brought her to find herself. She wrote Happy Beginnings: How I Became My Own Fairy Godmother and found speaking and empowering others was her passion.
After meeting the love of her life, they embarked on the thrilling life to follow their dreams bringing their families along for the ride. Today Lorena has nine novels in her writing queue all with screenplays in the works.
But writing isn't the only muse that inspires Lorena. She has become a passionate photographer and likes to push the envelope taking shots while learning how to navigate Photoshop. Travel, walking, enjoying new restaurants, and Italy are other loves and things she makes sure she has time for.
Lorena Bathey found after writing her first book that characters were visiting her mind and wouldn't leave. She was introduced to Marissa, Andrea, Lily, Deidre and Beatrice and her first novel, Beatrice Munson, came to life. After finishing that book she was inspired to write more novels and she knew that pursuing her passion was the best way to live her life. So a writer she became.
In My Mailbox is a weekly meme created by The Story Siren to share whatever books and bookish goodies that you've bought, borrowed, won, or been gifted and have thus entered your home the previous week. You can show off books that you are excited about and it's also a great opportunity to showcase books that you may not actually have the time to read or review.
Here's what came into my home this past week
Won:
Destiny has a way of catching up.
Saddled with powers she doesn't understand, Etta Fleming's world is turned upside-down the day she meets Cooper Everett, the man who transports her to an alternate reality. A reality she was meant to be a part of.
One minute, she's an orphan living at Dominion House for Girls, an institution for delinquent foster kids, then finds herself attending the exclusive Dominion Hall Academy.
Plucked from the only world she's ever known, Etta now has to deal with an aunt she never knew, a boyfriend she doesn't know, and a best friend who can't know.
(Thanks so much to Claudia Lefeve & Kismet Book Touring for this wonderful personalized paperback, bracelet and travel mug!!)
Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between carnivore and vegetarian. As he became a husband and a father, he kept returning to two questions: Why do we eat animals? And would we eat them if we knew how they got on our dinner plates?
Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, and his own undercover detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales justify a brutal ignorance. Marked by Foer's profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, huge bestsellers, Eating Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we've told--and the stories we now need to tell.
Jenny has a secret. Her touch spreads a supernatural plague.
She devotes her life to avoiding contact with people, until her senior year of high school, when she meets the one boy she can touch, and she falls in love.
But there's a problem--he's under the spell of his devious girlfriend Ashleigh, who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all.
Now Jenny must learn to use the deadly "Jenny pox" she's fought her entire life to hide, or be destroyed by Ashleigh's ruthless plans.
Not recommended for readers under sixteen due to mature content.
She reads minds.
He controls minds.
Together, they might get out alive.
Sam thinks she's months away from freedom. After spending her life in a secret school, rented out to the rich and powerful as a paranormal spy, she is ready to head to college like any normal eighteen-year-old.
Only Sam isn't normal. She reads minds. And just before her big going-away party, she links to the mind of a young man who changes everything.
Drake wasn't raised as a 'Rent-A-Kid.' He was kidnapped and taken there by force. But his exceptional physical strength and powers of mind control make him very dangerous, especially to Sam.
When they meet, Sam is forced to face the truth of her situation, and to acknowledge that not all is as it seems in her picture-perfect world. For what awaits her on her eighteenth birthday isn't a trip to college, but an unexpected nightmare from which she may not be able to escape.
To survive, they must work together.
But will their powers be enough to save them before it's too late?
Lawrence Davenport lives a fortunate life. He has a brilliant career, an enviable home, a devoted wife, and so much more. But Lawrence Davenport also has a brutal secret. After three years, Emmet Navar is still grieving the death of his wife. Month by month he puts more pieces of his outwardly simple world back together, dedicating himself to his boys first and his firm second. The woman they both know is battling demons from her past, demons in the present, and demons she is sure will rear in her future...and the future of those now close to her. Many days she allows herself to be fooled to believe her life is normal...even happy.
Full of suspense, adventure and humor, you'll fall in love with the characters at every twist and turn in Merciful Law. It is the perfect blend of male and female, action and romance. As the story unfolds, you will wonder who will win, who will lose, who will live and who will die.
Merciful Law...they had a marriage to die for...and someone will.
A book of short stories and fables designed specifically for cat lovers. The topics range from mythology to magic and horror stories (for cats) combined with a few essays written by a cat in order to help the rest of us understand their logic and reasoning. The book also includes a creative retelling of the Gingerbread Man from a cat’s perspective. You share so much with your cat, why not read together, also?
When a stray kitten is raised by a family of dogs, she grows up thinking she is a dog. She fetches, growls, gives paw, and even does her best to bark. She loves her dog family, but when a little girl wants to adopt her and gives her the perfect name, the kitten will have to decide where her home really is.
Title:Beatrice Munson Author: Lorena Bathey Reading level: Adult Genre: Chick Lit Size: Paperback, 307 pages Release Date: April 2011 Publisher: Lorena B Books Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone Source: Author in exchange for an honest review
First Line: Beatrice Munson was the girl you hated in high school.
Summary (from GoodReads):
In Vista Heights, the women of the neighborhood have started to look like their homes, varying shades of beige. Lost in this world of suburbia, Marissa Lyons learns her high school nemesis has bought the house right across the street from her. Afraid that her arch enemy, Beatrice Munson, will arrive with Marissa's high school crush as her husband and cause Marissa to relieve the insecurity of high school in her her forties, she decides to face the music and head to Beatrice's house with warm cupcakes. But what Marissa finds is something she never expected. How will Marissa and the rest of the women of San Martino deal with someone like Beatrice Munson, whose defining moment in her life was to get a boob job or go on a trip to Egypt. This story is about friendship, love, learning to look at things differently, and great parties. Step into the world of Vista Heights where you might not only recognize the women, you might be one of them.
Favorite Quotes from the Book:
"It was as if the windows of their minds were thrown open to a fresh breeze which was causing the judges of Beigeville to lose their steam."
"It was funny to me that these women had come armed to bring down Beatrice Munson with their litany of questions and standards but instead she had brought them down to their humanity and womanhood with just a couple of sips of effectively spiked nectar."
"armed with baked goods, loving support, and a swift kick in the butt we were ready to wake up from the slumber of suburbia."
"But I believe that you can be afraid and you can change that into courage and bravery by doing things even when you fear them."
The smell of printed paper lingered in the air, even though the printing was done somewhere else. And I loved how words loitered here. Not your every day slang, but words like plethora, sublime, antagonistic, and loquacious. the words were suspended above the desks like invisible mobiles. The smell of ink permeated the walls and you smelled it every time the door opened. It had stability and character asking you to sit for hours."
"I didn't love myself. And if I didn't love myself, how could I let anyone love me in return?"
My Thoughts:
Beatrice Munson really surprised me! I thought I'd enjoy it...I didn't realize how much it would genuinely touch me. This book is so much more than just chick lit. It is truly inspirational.
When Marissa's old high school nemesis moves in to the house across the street, Marissa braces herself to relive all of the insecurities that she faced in her teens...however the whirlwind that is Beatrice has quite the opposite effect on, not only Marissa, but the entire neighborhood.
Day by day, the women who'd previously been trapped in the stereotypical suburban lifestyle rediscover themselves and begin to actually live for themselves rather than simply keeping up appearances. One by one they rediscover their hopes and dreams and encourage each other to follow them.
My only complaints about the novel would be that the pacing just seemed a bit off at points and that I wasn't too keen on how the issue of the adopted child's adjustment was handled. A party being thrown for an adoption homecoming (especially an international one) was incredibly unrealistic and the child's rollercoaster from handling the homecoming with no issues, to becoming troubled, and then to adjusting was glossed over to the point that it would have been best simply left out as were most of the back stories for the children in the novel.
Overall though, I have no reservations in recommending this novel to lovers of the genre. This heartwarming story will draw you in, the characters will hold you, the gorgeous parties will amaze you and after a few laughs, a few tears, and some genuine soul searching of your own...you'll be happy to have picked up Beatrice Munson.
Was it worth my Time?
Check back on Monday for my chat with Lorena Bathey and a wonderful giveaway of 5 Beatrice Munson E-Books!!!
Q: In light of 11.11.11 and Veteran’s Day tell us about your favorite soldier and how he or she is saving the world. Fictional or real life.
A.It's impossible to pick just one soldier...every single soldier (as well as his/her family) has sacrificed something to serve us and I am grateful to each and every one.
'My Bookworm Santa' is an event that Bree from The Magic Attic and Michelle from Book Briefs are hosting. I'm so excited to be signing up! Here's a little more info from Michelle's site:
My Bookworm Santa is the book blogger's version of 'Secret Santa.' So you sign up via the form below, and we'll pair you up with another random entrant. If you're only willing to ship to America, we'll pair you up with someone from America.(remember though, that the Book Depository ships free to most countries. This is a good way to meet some international book bloggers) We'll send their wishlist and address to you, and your wishlist and address to them. Then, before December 10th, we'll ask that you purchase a book from the wishlist we sent over, and send the book to your randomly selected blogger. And on Christmas (December 25th), you'll reveal yourself to the other person, and hopefully make new friends :) Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, you're more than welcome to join us.
Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s) and then link up at the host's site: The True Book Addict. It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy!
Hmmm...what is he thinking about?
Where did Piper go?
Found you!
P.S. Don't mind the ugly paint colors in my guest bedroom...we'll repaint someday! we've only been living here for...uhmmm...well...9 months! lol
Wishlist Wednesday is a book blog hop hosted by Pen to Paper where we will post about one book per week that has been on our wishlist for some time, or just added (it's entirely up to you), that we can't wait to get off the wishlist and onto our wonderful shelves.
On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City. It's where we list all the books we desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.
Antiques-shop clerk Maggie O'Neill was a little weirded out when she discovered her new boss Felicity was a witch. But when Felicity becomes the suspect in a local murder, Maggie must enlist Felicity's wiccan friends for help--and discover her own spellbinding talent.
My Thoughts:
This sounds like a perfectly delightful autumn read. Take a little chick lit. add in a bit of cozy mystery, and then mix with the paranormal and viola!
