Beautiful Malice

Having met Rebecca James through the wonderful world of writing blogs, I was more than a little excited to get my hands on a copy of her book. It didn't disappoint. James kept me turning the pages from the beginning. She had an interesting premise, peopled with unique characters who jumped off the page.

Katherine Patterson's secret lies at the heart of this story. She buries her past and begins anew by changing her name and moving to a new city, but eventually her past catches up with her. Her baby sister, Rachel, was tragically and violently murdered, and Katherine bears the burden of guilt, believing it was her fault. When Alice--beautiful and popular--befriends Katherine, she starts to think life can be normal and lets her guard down. But Alice has a secret too.

The story unfolds in terrifying ways, and although I guessed Alice's secret halfway through, it didn't deter me from reading faster to find out how it all ended.

Beautiful Malice explores the dark side of friendship, and although I haven't experienced a relationship this toxic, I could definitely identify with the familiar feeling of unease that Alice creates throughout. I highly recommend this psychological thriller. You can pick up a copy of Beautiful Malice in hardback on Amazon or in paperback here. Enjoy!

The Bee's Knees

Today I'm taking part in a special one-day blog tour. Lovely Caroline's newest book releases next week, and hopefully readers will be flocking to it like bees to honey. *Grins*

Each chapter of her book is featured on one blog today. To begin the tour, start here and follow the links. I'm hosting Chapter 22, and the tour continues on Liz Fenwick's blog.

UK readers can order a copy of Like Bees to Honey on Amazon UK, while reader elsewhere can purchase it from The Book Depository, which offers free worldwide shipping.

Without further adieu, here is Chapter 22. Enjoy!

Open publication - Free publishing

Sala

Last night Husband took me to San Francisco to attend an event at the Jewish Community Center there. Ann Kirschner spoke about her book, Sala's Gift (which I mentioned a few weeks ago), and the Center had the accompanying traveling exhibit on display.

The book details the story of how Ann discovered her mother's hidden Holocaust past, but it also tells her mother's story through the over 300 letters and postcards she hid during the war.

This book piqued my interest, in particular, because it is the story of a 'silent' survivor. We hear about the survivors who share their stories, but so many more kept them hidden for years, even from their own children. In my novel I write about a silent survivor and the effect of that silence on her relationship with her daughter; I also explore how the revelation of her secret affects her daughter. It was great to discover a real life equivalent with such a hopeful ending.

For more about Sala's story, see the page for Sala's Gift here.

On a related note, when we arrived at the Center it saddened me to discover that they must search the trunk of every car entering the parking garage, because anti-semitism is still a very real threat, even in cosmopolitan San Francisco. I cannot understand how there are still people in the world who hate others just because they were born different than them. We've come a long way, but we still have so far to go.

Eventful

I feel like I'm trying to keep up with the pace of life these past few months. A niece, reunions, bridal showers and weddings, a final draft, trips home, and a new hard drive are keeping me busy!

Two weekends ago my best friend got married. Eight years ago she was my maid of honor, and it was great to finally repay the favor. I spent the week leading up to her wedding at home in Oregon--throwing a bridal shower, celebrating with a bachelorette party (perhaps a few too many margaritas...), and rehearsing ("Please, please, don't fall down the stairs, Angie!"). The wedding went well, I didn't trip, and the bride was gorgeous!

Once I got home, I had to catch up on work and start retrieving what files I could. I found most of my music, with the exception of a few CDs. Thankfully, I always backup our pictures on our desktop, although I know I need to backup the last two or three years on disk now. Just in case. I lost a lot of my documents, but with the old backup version of my writing file I found, I am able to partially reconstruct my data.

However, I had to go back to the Apple store this week because the new battery they gave me was not working. It could not hold a charge at all, so any time I knocked my cord loose, the computer died. They replaced the battery and the battery connector (which was also new), and now it finally seems to be back up and running.

On a more exciting note, Husband took me up to San Fran for the Jewish BookFest on Sunday, where I heard Anita Diamant read from her new book, Day After Night, which looks amazing. It follows a group of young, female Holocaust survivors in the postwar period as they struggle to create a new life in Palestine, but they run into obstacles with the British Mandate and are imprisoned in camps on arrival. When I did research for my book, I learned about these incidents and was fascinated that I'd never heard more about it. I thought it would make an interesting book, and with Diamant's immense talents, I think it will be an excellent read. I also got my copy of The Red Tent signed. *squeals*

Now I'm turning my focus to my final revisions. I've received two of the reader reports back on my manuscript, and I need to make a plan for my final edits. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this....

Book Group Expo

This weekend I'm heading to Book Group Expo in San Jose. I'm volunteering tomorrow and Sunday I'm attending as a regular reader. (Rumor has it they gave out awesome goody bags last year!) I'm super excited. I'll be working in a Salon--where authors discuss their books--to help make sure everything runs smoothly. Hopefully I don't get too starstruck.

If you're in the bay area this weekend, you should check it out. It's a two day event, and there are fabulous Authors, from a range of styles, attending.

McEwan on writing

There is a wonderful interview with Ian McEwan over at Borders. He discusses making Atonement into a movie, but he also discusses the process of writing the book itself and even more intriguing to me, his life as a writer. The interview is a little long, but it's well worth a look.

You can't imagine how relieved I feel to hear Ian McEwan--one of my favorite writers--say that writing is a daily struggle for him and that sometimes he actually doesn't like it. Phew!

Literary goings-on

Two pieces of literary news today. Kurt Vonnegut died last night. And I'm ashamed to say--readerly Lit major that I am--I still have not ready any of his books, though they are on my ever-growing list of must-reads, especially Slaughterhouse-Five. (Very bad Angie!) Check out the New York Times obituary for more on his extraordinary life and work.
On a more positive note, lovers of Tolkien will rejoice that in five days the first "complete" JRR Tolkien book in three decades will be published. His son, Christopher Tolkien, has been gathering his papers for years, and this has culminated in the publication of The Children of Húrin. I for one am happily awaiting its release.
I suppose I should stop reading about other writers online and actually go back to my own writing, huh? Bleh. Well, that and calling apartments for friends, which is equally productive. ;)
Here's a thought to leave you with: If I am ever published, should I get a tweedy author photo with pipe and all so as to look intelligent a la Tolkien? Could definitely boost my (ahem) old white male readership...or not.

Innocent? Well fabulous anyway.

Will update on the writing later as promised yesterday....

Finished The Innocent and it was fabulous, although I was irritated with myself for not getting to sleep at a good time (I pulled the old "Just one more chapter, I promise," until 1am and paid for it in the morning.). Cemented my opinion of McEwan as, arguably, my favorite contemporary author. (I found out he has a book publishing in June in the US! Yea!) I have another book of his, The Child in Time, waiting on my shelf to be read, but must continue on with my German post-war theme and read The Good German instead. After that perhaps I'll give in and read another McEwan on our flight. Or perhaps continue my education in Jewish-American literature with that Nicole Krauss book (Man Walks Into a Room) calling my name. *sigh* So many good books to read and so little time. And no, I do not read during the day because that is work time, aka writing time, so I don't have more time than the average person. (However, the occasional read in the loo doesn't count, Adam tells me everyone does it. ;))

On a completely random note, this weekend we found out that the condos in our complex are now selling for about $20k more than what we purchased ours for, which is pretty great news. Not quite a real estate slump then. We also fared the tax season well with a nice refund winging our way soon (with lots of thanks to Kris's dad for helping us figure out all the confusing mortgage stuff). All in all a good week with fine weather and a trip to Vegas to look forward to in a week and a half.