The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Book 49 in the 50 Book Challenge

Despite having an extremely active week with my house guests (and kids!), I did manage to get a bit of late-night reading done.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter probably won't make my top ten best books of all time, but I'm confident in recommending it as a VERY GOOD READ.
Author Kim Edwards does an amazing job with her characters, letting us into the very depths of their damaged souls, set between the story of parallel lives.

I'm going to attempt to give a brief summary - but you know this isn't my forte!

It's 1964 and Dr. David Henry and his wife Norah -- young and passionately in love -- are about to have their first child. A snowstorm prevents them from making it to the hospital on time, so they divert to David's clinic.

Norah gives birth to twins, but is told her daughter has died. Except she didn't.

Phoebe is born with Down's Syndrome and it being 1964, is not expected to live. David gives the infant to his nurse, Caroline Gill, - a singe woman who happens to be in love with the good doctor, -to take to an institution, an acceptable choice for someone back then. Except she doesn't.

Caroline, upon seeing the horrible institution, takes Phoebe herself and moves to another city.

Norah can't get over the loss of Phoebe, and she doesn't understand David's unwillingness to talk about her. The emotional husband-wife bond seems to have been replaced with a wall. She doesn't realize that he husband is burdened by guilt and secrets.

David lost his sister to a heart condition when they were children and the damage it did to his parents was unbearable. He was trying to spare Norah the horrible future that was inevitable with a Down's child. Always the protector, trying to save the world, David's decision to give up Phoebe turns out to the thread the unravels his marriage, his happiness and his dreams.

Meanwhile, Caroline gives high-functioning Phoebe a life of love and opportunity, though she too bears the secrets of Phoebe's birth, always worried that David will appear and take Phoebe away.

This book squeezed my heart from the beginning and didn't let go. There were no bad guys or good guys, just beautifully drawn human characters that were entirely relatable, making choices that they honestly thought were the right ones at the time.
I felt their pain, their regret and empathized with their situations.

POST #300

THIS IS MY 300th POST! I feel compelled to make it a long one, so y'all might want to grab a coffee...

I feel like an obsessed 13 year old girl for even bringing this up, but ding-dang world, just leave the wretched Brit Brit alone already. It's insulting that her VMA debacle, which took place FIVE freaking days ago, should still be in the top news stories. Please, Paris, Lyndsay, do something stupid so the spotlight can continue to arc through the moral wasteland of Hollywood junior celebs. Columnist TV Stevie sums it up best: http://yahoo.rogers.com/yahoo/spotlight/tv_stevie.jsp?id=20070912
That's it. No more. Not wasting a single 'nother moment of my life on feeling sorry for stupid girl.

Red Garnier posted a link to alpha heroes that's worth a read.

Congrats to Amy for making it past the 50 mark in the 50 Book Challenge! Woot!!
I ALMOST made it, but I chose last week to reread a book that's already on the 50 book list, so didn't think it would qualify.
I'm sure you're asking, WHY? and WHAT BOOK? :O)
I reread Robin L Rotham's Alien Overnight because after taking the Margie Lawson writing workshop last week, I wanted to use Robin's book as a study; to try and understand WHY I liked it so much. (Robin, my autographed copy of AO now has five different colored highlighters and lots of sidebar notes. Oh, and some kitten poop, but that's a whole 'nuther story!)
Oh sure, the sex was hot, that's a given, but I liked it because her character development was excellent, the dialogue was brilliant, and she wove in the perfect amount of emotional depth without muddying the waters with an overload of backstory or narrative.
AND, I picked up so many little subtleties that I missed the first time around.
I can probably count on one hand the books I've actually REread. Once is usually enough for me. That's a compliment, Ms Rotham! If you haven't read Alien Overnight yet, DO IT. That's an order :)

And confession time...
I'm reading a Kathleen Woodiwiss and am having one hell of a time trying to stay awake. I haven't read her in about 15 years (maybe longer) and I LOVED her books. LOVED THEM! But left her behind when I started to move away from the romance genre.
So with great eagerness, I stole The Reluctant Suitor from my sister's bookshelf and dove in.
To know me is to know that I DEVOUR books. A full-length novel is easily a 2 evening read. But holy watching paint dry, Batman, The Reluctant Suitor's chapter one has taken me 3 evenings to get through. That's 38 pages, people! I keep falling asleep, and that NEVER happens. I'm usually reluctant to close a book and only do it if my clock is chiming 2am!!
Let me summarize what happens in those 38 pages: 3 couples, fresh from riding, race into the house and find a stranger standing there, expect it's really the brother who's been off fighting Napolean.
That's it! Nothing more. There are pages of dialogue (complete with inner thoughts that provide endless backstory) between two people while the other 5 people (and the butler and two dogs) are what? Standing around? Groping each other?? On pause???
I feel wretched bashing the writing of someone recently deceased, and wretcheder about bashing a writer who practically defined 'the modern romance novel' but um, Margie Lawson really opened my eyes about a few things... Or perhaps I'm just jaded now.

So, Amy, at this rate, my 50th book could quite possibly take me all the way through December!

Unrelated to anything: When I posted my TT last week, the one about what I did about my sister's visit, a few people asked why I mentioned the purchase of a tv and what did that have to do with sister.
Well,... that's because the tv was a surprise for my dh and I needed my brother-in-law's advice on what to get cause he's into all that techie big-screen-for-watching-sporting-events stuff.

Attendance will be spotty over the next week as I have house guests arriving tomorrow for the week. Hubby is taking father-in-law hot-air ballooning! Something I'd love to do myself one day, but oh yeah - I suffer from panic attacks and would probably jump out of the dang basket as soon as we were 3 feet in the air. Damn I've got issues...

Hope y'all have a GRRRRREAT weekend!

The Girls by Lori Lansens

Book #29 in the 50 BOOK CHALLENGE: The Girls by Lori Lansens

Coincidentally, ThommaLyn blogged about slush pile/marketability tonight, a theme that runs parallel to my thoughts on The Girls.

First, this book was sent to me from England by my mother-in-law, who was given it by her sister Judy (Uncle Michael's wife - for those 'in the know'), who read it as a book club selection. Why is this important? Because ironically, the book is set in Southern Ontario, Canada, which is where I live. There's been much discussion in our Toronto Romance Writers about setting -- mainly that books set in Canada don't sell. Apparently, this one did.

Next point (and please excuse the rambling. Chalk it up to very little sleep) is the topic, and for this, I'm going directly from the back cover blurb:

In twenty-nine years, Rose Darlen has never spent a moment apart from her twin sister Ruby. She has never gone for a solitary walk or had a private conversation. Yet, in all that time, she has never once looked into Ruby's eyes. Joined at the head, 'The Girls' (as they are known in their small town) attempt to lead a normal life, but can't help being extraordinary. Now almost thirty, Rose and Ruby are on the verge of becoming the oldest living craniopagus twins in history, but they are remarkable for a lot more than their unusual sisterly bond.

Now seriously, readers, based on this 'tease', would you have picked this book up?
I'm going to be perfectly honest and say - Not if it was the last book in the bin. Why? *enter devil's advocate*
Because I can't imagine what life must be like for people in this situation and perhaps don't want to.
Because it's far easier to disassociate myself from the cruelties of nature, look upon my own perfect children and remain blissfully unaware.
Because I don't have time to feel sorry for them -- my God, I've got my own issues!
Because when I steal a few moments to lose myself in a book, I want to escape into a world of wonder, adventure, excitement...

And wouldn't you question the sanity of the publisher? Surely this book wouldn't 'chart', couldn't possibly find an audience broad enough, open-minded enough to sit through 300+ pages of what surely described the miserable life of conjoined twins!

Ah, how wrong we (I) was.
The Girls is an extraordinary novel. Beautifully written, depressing/disturbing - yes, in some parts, - but also uplifting, amusing and a wonderful experience. I'm so glad I was given this gift and hope you will seek it out the next time you're in a bookstore. I can see why it's popular amongst the book-clubs: it leaves room for discussion, ponderence, and character analysis.

Back to marketing for a moment: I feel a little sad for this author, Lori Lansens, because she'll never (deservedly) become as rich or famous as Nora Roberts or Stephen King, who both have my absolute and undying respect, but after reading a book like The Girls, those 'best selling' novels feel somehow devoid of any real meaning.

Now, off I go to work on my own emotionally meaningless wip! ;0 (Don't castigate... I jest!)

But first, I leave you with the opening paragraph:
I have never looked into my sister's eyes. I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the grass at night and raised my arms to a beguiling moon. I've never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn a hat. Or been kissed like that. Or solo walk. I've never climbed a tree. Or faded into a crowd. So many things I've never done, but oh, how I've been loved. And, if such things were to be, I'd live a thousand lives as me, to be loved so exponentially.

Catching up, Thinking Blogger torch gets passed...

I've been a bit out of the loop the last few days. I've been lurking, making a quick comment or two, but my heart hasn't been in blogland lately.
Let's catch up, shall we? (cue dramatic music...)

Thanks for all your comments and prayers for my friend's son. Good news - latest cat scan indicates that Owen's brain tumor was excised in its entirety. Bad news - still no clue what caused it as the biopsy results are still pending.

My Sweetness (aka almost-three-year old son) had to undergo a horrible test at the hospital last Friday which I still have trouble thinking about. The poor little munchkin had to be catheterized while me and two nurses held him down. It was awful!! He was crying hysterically, I was fighting tears and the whole thing went on too long. They pumped dye into his little bladder for a series of x-rays, then... I can't even go on.
Emotionally, I'm just all beat up. Poor kiddo is back in diapers cause he's so afraid his 'willy' will hurt. I'm very mad at our doctor for not preparing us for this ordeal. We thought it was an ultrasound, as in No Pain. Had I know it was such an invasive procedure, I would have exhausted all other avenues of diagnosis first. Totally unnecessary...

It get's happier from here, I promise...

It's MAY!! My book, Destiny by Design comes out in 17 days. Yes, I'm counting! Wouldn't you? :) I'm going to be posting the blurb, a few hook lines and an excerpt over the next few weeks and have already decided on a Destiny-themed Thursday Thirteen.

I finished book 24 in the 50 Book Challenge: Margaret Moore's The Duke's Desire.
Yipee! Almost 1/2 way to my goal and I'm slightly ahead of schedule. I've got a Jennifer Crusie to tackle next. This is my first Crusie, so it better be good!

And speaking of books, I just received another installment of Notes & Reflections from Uncle Mike, which I shall post tomorrow.

My wonderful darling husband is creating a new website for me. It's AWESOME! I scrutinized every author website out there looking for components I liked in terms of tone, color, headers, content, rollovers, you name it. Yes, if you have a website, I've examined it thoroughly!
There are some AMAZING examples out there -- author's truly are a creative bunch! The hardest part was capturing the essence of 'me'. It's great to say that Daisy Dexter Dobbs has a fun site, or KJ Howe's is da bomb, but I needed an image, a look, a design that screams WYLIE! And because I haven't really put myself in a tidy little 'niche' box just yet, it was difficult to pinpoint the feel. Having said that, I'm tickled red white and pink with what my DH has come up with. We've still got quite a bit of content to upload, but I hope to debut it within the next 2 weeks.

Finally, I've been terrible to ignore the fact that Susan Helene Gottfried honored me with the Thinking Blogger Award over a week ago and I haven't passed the torch. So here goes, in no particular order:
Thomma Lyn - her writing quotes always stir interesting discussion and make me look at particular aspects of my writing that may not have come front-of-mind unless provoked.

Candy Minx - I don't even know where to begin. This woman is smart, and talented, and creative and inspiring. Her eclectic posts - art, music, television, movies, books, issues - are so thought provoking that I often have to go back and reread them a second time just to absorb it all.

Here are the rules, for you newly tagged folk...
How participation works: If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

(I know I'm supposed to tag five, but I'll start with these two and give some more thought to the others. There are just so many great blogs out there!)

Finally, finally,... If you haven't yet voted in the The Blogger Awards, don't forget I'm up for a Blogitzer and would greatly appreciate your vote. Just click the link and do your thing - THANKS!

Promise Me, A Prayer for Owen

Usual preface: I'm NOT a book review site, yada, yada, yada...

Book 23 in the 50 Book Challenge: Harlen Coben's Promise Me

This is the 5th book I've read by Coben. His talent for fast-pace story telling and twisty-turny plot always seems to keep me reading into the wee hours. Promise Me is the latest in the Myron Bolitar series. I'm not crazy about this series because all the characters, aside from Myron, are like charactures -- too extreme, somehow. But whatever, I still enjoy them, just not enought to run out and buy them all. I prefer Coben's single titles; Tell No One is one of my fave suspense reads, EVER.

Bad things/good people:

Yesterday I got some devasting news. My friend's little 2 year old son has a brain tumor. He's being treated at Toronto's Sick Kids Hospital. I would like to ask my buddies in blogland to please say a prayer for Owen Yee. Thanks

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

The usual preface: I'm not a book review site...

Book 22 in the 50 Book Challenge: Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer

It's another book I've had in my TBR pile for over a year and I'm so glad it finally sifted to the top. Great read. I tried to write my thoughts, but couldn't really do the book justice. When you're writing comments (not a review!!) about a book that sports such rich narrative, it's hard to do it justice. My solution? Cut and paste what HarperAcademic had to say:

Barbara Kingsolver, a writer praised for her "extravagantly gifted
narrative voice" (New York Times Book Review), has created with this novel a
hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of
nature itself.
Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love
within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and
struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined
narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region.
Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches the forest from her
outpost in an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie
Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and confound
her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain,
another web of lives unfolds as Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned
farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she
must declare or lose her attachment to the land. And a few more miles down the
road, a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and
wrangle about God, pesticides, and the complexities of a world neither of them
expected.
Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate
overtakes a green and profligate countryside, these characters find connections
to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a
place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of
biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans
are only one part of life on earth.
With the richness that characterizes
Barbara Kingsolver's finest work, Prodigal Summer embraces pure thematic
originality and demonstrates a balance of narrative and ideas that only an
accomplished novelist could render so beautifully.

But if I had to sum up this book in a few sentences, I'd say it's like a Merchant & Ivory film: slow paced, not a lot of action, but rich, moving and beautiful.

The Birth House by Ami McKay

The usual preface: I'm not a book review site. If you want honest, nice, snark or a rating, go see Smart Bitches, Mrs. Giggles, Dear Author, Karen Scott, Romance Divas, etc...

Book 21 in the 50 Book Challenge:

The last page in Ami McKay's The Birth House was turned at 2AM yesterday morning. Yes, I'm tired, but the few hours of lost sleep was worth it. The story is a snapshot of life in Scots Bay, Nova Scotia in the years before, during and after WWI. The central theme, I would say, is about the friendship of women, how we provide strength, knowledge and companionship to each other during good times and bad, and how we inevitably band together as sisters when our ways are threatened. Goodness, I just read that sentence back and I haven't really done the story any justice. Dora Rare, the protaginist, is trained as a midwife/healer in a time when science and medicine are becoming popular. Many begin to distrust her methods thanks to a pushy doctor who blames all the ills of women on hysteria and neurosis. Actual medical journals are excerpted (is that even a word?). It's amazing to me, in light of their disgusting misinformation, that more men weren't murdered in their sleep back in those days. How our female ancestors put up with the ignorance of the male species (and accompanying crap!) for so long amazes me. Honestly, it's a bloody wonder we're not a race of cloned lesbians...

But I digress.

I liked this book. It's full of raw emotion, the sadness and joys of being a woman, the struggle of our foremothers, the forebearance of the human race. It reminded me a little of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent.

But... the entire time, I couldn't help but compare it to Ann Marie MacDonald's award winning book Fall on Your Knees, which was also set in Eastern Canada in the early 1900's, but was superior in story and writing. The Birth House was a good book, Fall On Your Knees was a GREAT book. Had I been aware of the similarities, I wouldn't have read them so close together because I don't think I was able to give The Birth House a fair shake.

Seriously, don't read my upcoming book Destiny By Design after a pulizer winning novel, okay?? Perhaps I'll distribute copies of 'The Book So Awful It Shall Not Be Named' to everyone on May 15th, just so mine will look like a literary gem in comparison.

Go buy The Birth House.

I've been gone awhile...

...it was like a little vacation. Except it wasn't.
I've been sick. Head cold sick. Stuffy, achy, hot/cold shivery, coughy, sneezy sick. Poor Sweetness (aka youngest son) had to endure days on end of television while Mommy lay barely conscious on the couch.
I feel better now. Thanks for caring ;D

The only redeeming thing about not being able to sleep because your sinuses are in full impact implosion mode is the ability to get caught up on lots of reading. I put away two novels since Wednesday ~ Men in Kilts by Katie MacAlister (recommended by Amy) and Lover Awakened by JR Ward.

Now lets go back to a little post from a last week, where I eschewed anything vampirish, then had to eat my words after reading Lover Eternal. Well, I'm still munching!
JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series is my guilty pleasure. I shouldn't like them ~ as I said before ~ they're loaded with hokey dialogue, pop culture references which really date the series - I mean, 'The Swan' went off the air years ago, didn't it? - testosterone dripping uber-alpha males in black leather trenchcoats with ridiculous names like Tohrment, Rhage, Vishous and Phury. And have I mentioned their penchant for designer duds? When's the last time any man YOU know complimented another man on his Dolce & Gabbana suit? (please, don't answer that...)
There's also a squicky underlying tone of homoerotica...
AND I'M JUST SUCKING IT ALL UP, BABY!
Somehow, this author makes it work. Really work. Works so well that when the 4th book in the series, Lover Revealed, hits the shelves on Tuesday, March 6th, this little lady will be in line at Chapters. And that's just creeping me out a little sumpin. "You feel me, my brother?"

Men in Kilts, meanwhile, was a very funny, light-hearted read. The perfect book to bring me back to reality. It takes place in Scotland (no, really?) and having been there myself, I could picture the sheep dotting the country-side ... and maybe the yummy Scottish men in kilts, just a wee bit. And maybe I had Gerard Butler's voice in my head. Just odd times, usually between 3am - 11pm.
Oh bluidy hell, Amy! See what you've started...

50 Book Challenge Scorecard: 14 Books Down, 36 To Go... Whoop!

I have much blogging to catch up on... but this is it for tonight. Tomorrow I shall tackle the topics "Did I really write that?" and "Watch out Nation, here I come!"

10 Books Down, 40 More To Go

Finished Linda L Miller's McKettirck's Luck the other night. Pretty good read, but I must say, I'm really turned off by the whole romance genre right now. This can't be a good thing, considering I write romance!! But honestly, the last few books I picked up, I couldn't get past the first three pages. Even this one,... there was so much narrative in the first chapter -- so much crammed-in backstory, that if I wasn't trapped in the little room where my son's speech therapy was taking place, I may not have continued. There were SOOOO many characters - cousins, dead relatives, etc... that I found it rather distracting. But the author had to set it up this way because it's the first of a series. Next up is McKettrick's Pride, then McKettrick's Heart. So in addition to getting to know about Jesse, the hero, we had to have the history of him and his cousins, Rance and Keegan, -- and their backstories! And Sienna, and Travis, and the crippled brother, and the romantic-at-heart mother, and Bronwyn, the waitress at the pub...
It's no wonder that main characters in romance novels are more-often-than-not orphans or only-children, otherwise the author has to bore the reader to death with every person in the immediate and extended family. I just read a similar observation in Abby Godwin's blog.

Again, I feel compelled to say that I enjoyed the book overall. And loathe that I am to say negative things since I'm still collecting rejections, there was one scene in the book that was so contrived it was painful to read. Here's the abridged version:
Heroine walks in to hero's house and finds another woman (who happens to be the hero's ex-wife that he didn't tell the heroine about) in his bedroom who just happens to be wearing hero's t-shirt and nothing else... but hero had NO IDEA she was there because he was so tired when he got home, he didn't notice her sleeping on the couch... and she only went into his bedroom because she was scared of his big old house in the country... and she was tired so she took off all her clothes... blah blah blah...
How did this get past the editor??
Oh, now I'm mad at myself for ranting. I'm sure the author did what she thought was right for the characters and to move the story in the direction it needed to go.
Oh, great. Now I'm being a pussy,... It was a total cop-out! A lazy scene!!

Time to change genre's for awhile. Maybe I'll try a paranormal. Or another Pulitzer.
Any suggestions??