Svetlana's Reads and Views

Follow Alison Morton's Book Blast for SUCCESSIO, the third book in her Roma Nova Series, from June 16-27 for a chance to win your own autographed copy and bookmark! Publication Date: June 4, 2014 SilverWood Books Formats: eBook, Paperback Genre: Alternative Historical Thriller Roma Nova – the last remnant of the Roman Empire that has survived into the 21st century – is at peace. Carina Mitela, the heir of a leading family, but choosing the life of an officer in the Praetorian Guard Special Forces, is not so sure. She senses danger crawling towards her when she encounters a strangely self-possessed member of the unit hosting their exchange exercise in Britain. When a blackmailing letter arrives from a woman claiming to be her husband Conrad’s lost daughter and Conrad tries to shut Carina out, she knows the threat is real. Trying to resolve a young man’s indiscretion twenty-five years before turns into a nightmare that not only threatens to destroy all the Mitelae but ...

General Information: Name of Book: Love Will make you drink and gamble stay out late at night Author: Shelly Lowenkopf About the Author: ISBN: 978-0-9836329-8-6 Publisher: White Whisker Books Year it was published: 2014 Overall theme: Love and obsession go hand in hand 1. I've Got Those King City Blues  Message: Charlene Peck works at Buddy's Good Eats in Monterey County California and she begins to wear clothing that attracts opposite sex. She also meets Brian Sullivan who teaches her about the finer music such as The Trout Quintet in life before he departs for good. 2. Mr. Right Message: Beth Ann and Stacy are in a relationship and they're attempting to convince Roy to do something that might be against his principles. 3. The Ability Message: Rachel gets a job at a university to write various letters for everyone and she does such a good job that in the end she unwittingly betrays someone. 4. Absent Friends Message: Sam Zachar...

Title: Sweet Tooth, a Memoir Author: Tim Anderson First copyright date: 2014 Type of book: Diabetes, homosexuality, being gay, acceptance, high school, relationships, hiding self, 1980s up until 1990s? travel, New Jersey, disco and drug culture General subject matter: A young man who has obsession with sweets discovers that he has diabetes as well as the fact that he's gay. Special features: N/A Price: $14.95 ISBN/ASIN: 978-1477818077 Summary: What’s a sweets-loving young boy growing up gay in North Carolina in the eighties supposed to think when he’s diagnosed with type 1 diabetes? That God is punishing him, naturally. This was, after all, when gay-hating Jesse Helms was his senator, AIDS was still the boogeyman, and no one was saying, “It gets better.” And if stealing a copy of a gay porno magazine from the newsagent was a sin, then surely what the men inside were doing to one another was much worse. Sweet Tooth is Tim Anderson’s uproarious memoir of ...

Title: Breathe A Memoir of Motherhood, Grief, and Family Conflict Author: Kelly Kittel First copyright date: 2014 Type of book: Losing children, faith, eastern state meets western state, marriage, family troubles, lack of respect, 1990s, large family, grief, hope General subject matter: Shortly after the birth of Noah, Kelly experiences loss and death throughout her life, teaching her valuable lessons as well as finally being able to do something about it. Special features: N/A Price: $18.95 ISBN/ASIN: 978-1-938314-78-0 Summary:  Kelly Kittel never questioned her Mayflower Society mantra—“Family is the most important thing”—until the day her fifteen-month-old son was run over by her sixteen-year-old niece. Nine months later, Kittel’s doctor made a terrible mistake during her subsequent pregnancy and she found herself burying yet another baby. Caught up in the maelstrom of a malpractice lawsuit, Kittel and her husband battle not only the medical system, bu...

Name of Book: Mrs. Poe Author: Lynn Cullen ISBN: 978-1-4767-0292-6 Publisher: Gallery Books Type of book: America, New York, 1845-1847, famous people, writing, Edgar Allan Poe, marriages, infidelities, friendship, romance, relationships, passion, forbidden fruit, life in 1840s Year it was published: 2014 Summary: A vivid and compelling novel about a woman who becomes entangled in an affair with Edgar Allan Poe—at the same time she becomes the unwilling confidante of his much-younger wife. It is 1845, and Frances Osgood is desperately trying to make a living as a writer in New York; not an easy task for a woman—especially one with two children and a philandering portrait painter as her husband. As Frances tries to sell her work, she finds that editors are only interested in writing similar to that of the new renegade literary sensation Edgar Allan Poe, whose poem, “The Raven” has struck a public nerve. She meets the handsome and mysterious Poe at a literary part...

Name of Book: The Year She Left Us Author: Kathryn Ma ISBN: 978-0-06-227334-5 Publisher: Harper Collins Type of book: International adoption, single parenting, lawyers, interracial relationships, multi-generational book, troublemaker, incompleteness, friendship, siblings Year it was published: 2014 Summary: From the winner of the 2009 Iowa Short Fiction Prize—comes the extraordinary, unexpected debut tale of three generations of Chinese-American women in a San Francisco family who must confront their past and carve out a future. The Kong women are in crisis. A disastrous trip to visit her "home" orphanage in China has plunged eighteen-year-old Ari into a self-destructive spiral. Her adoptive mother, Charlie, a lawyer with a great heart, is desperate to keep her daughter safe. Meanwhile, Charlie must endure the prickly scrutiny of her beautiful, Bryn Mawr educated mother, Gran—who, as the daughter of a cultured Chinese doctor, came to America to survive M...

Name of Book: A Replacement Life Author: Boris Fishman ISBN: 978-0-06-228787-8 Publisher: Harper Type of book: New York, 2006, reparations, victim, Russian-Jewish culture, adopted culture vs native culture, love triangle, choices, lying Year it was published: 2014 Summary: A singularly talented writer makes his literary debut with this provocative, soulful, and sometimes hilarious story of a failed journalist asked to do the unthinkable: Forge Holocaust-restitution claims for old Russian Jews in Brooklyn, New York. Yevgeny Gelman, grandfather of Slava Gelman, "didn't suffer in the exact way" he needs to have suffered to qualify for the restitution the German government has been paying out to Holocaust survivors. But suffer he has--as a Jew in the war; as a second-class citizen in the USSR; as an immigrant to America. So? Isn't his grandson a "writer"? High-minded Slava wants to put all this immigrant scraping behind him. Only the Amer...